And yet there remains the fact that both enemies and friends are surprised at our efficiency.  This is no new phenomenon.  Again and again in the course of history the British armies have had to win once more the reputation which had been forgotten.  Continentals have always begun by refusing to take them seriously.  Napoleon, who had never met them in battle, imagined that their unbroken success was due to some weakness in his Marshals rather than in any excellence of the troops.  “At last I have them, these English,” he exclaimed as he gazed at the thin, red line at Waterloo.  “At last they have me, these English,” may have been his thought that evening as he spurred his horse out of the debacle.  Foy warned him of the truth.  “The British infantry is the devil,” said he.  “You think so because you were beaten by them,” cried Napoleon.  Like von Kluck or von Kluck’s master, he had something to learn.

Why this continual depreciation?  It may be that the world pays so much attention to our excellent right arm that it cannot give us credit for having a very serviceable left as well.  Or it may be that they take seriously those jeremiads over our decay which are characteristic of our people, and very especially of many of our military thinkers.  I have never been able to understand why they should be of so pessimistic a turn of mind, unless it be a sort of exaltation of that grumbling which has always been the privilege of the old soldier.  Croker narrates how he met Wellington in his later years, and how the Iron Duke told him that he was glad he was so old, as he would not live to see the dreadful military misfortunes which were about to come to his country.  Looking back, we can see no reason for such pessimism as this.  Above all, the old soldier can never make any allowance for the latent powers which lie in civilian patriotism and valor.  Only a year ago I had a long conversation with a well-known British General, in which he asserted with great warmth that in case of an Anglo-German war with France involved the British public would never allow a trained soldier to leave these islands.  He is at the front himself and doing such good work that he has little time for reminiscence, but when he has he must admit that he underrated the nerve of his countrymen.

Assurance Beneath Pessimism.

And yet under the pessimism of such men as he there is a curious contradictory assurance that there are no troops like our own.  The late Lord Goschen used to tell a story of a letter that he had from a Captain in the navy at the time when he was First Lord.  This Captain’s ship was lying alongside a foreign cruiser in some port, and he compared in his report the powers of the two vessels.  Lord Goschen said that his heart sank as he read the long catalogue of points in which the British ship was inferior—­guns, armor, speed—­until he came to the postscript, which was:  “I think I could take her in twenty minutes.”