I was talking, a short time ago, to a very intelligent, and also Anglophile, French friend of mine.  He knew England well, but, until quite recently, had not visited the country for a few years.  He told me that what struck him most was the profound change which had come over British opinion since the occasion of his last visit.  We had been invaded, he said, by le militarisme continental.  In common with the vast majority of my countrymen, I am earnestly desirous of seeing our military organisation and military establishments placed on a thoroughly sound footing, but I have no wish whatever to see any portion of our institutions overwhelmed by a wave of militarisme continental.  It is because I think that the views advocated by Lord Wolseley tend—­although, I do not doubt, unconsciously to their distinguished author—­in the direction of a somewhat too pronounced militarisme, that I venture in some degree to differ from one for whom I have for many years entertained the highest admiration and the most cordial personal esteem.

[Footnote 51:  The Story of a Soldier’s Life.  Field-Marshal Viscount Wolseley.  Constable.]

[Footnote 52:  After carefully reading the book, I am in doubt as to the specific occasions to which allusion is here made.]

[Footnote 53:  This expression is used with reference to a warning to civilians that they should “keep their hands off the regiment.”  I do not know if any recent instances have occurred when civilians have wished to touch the essential portions of what is known as the “regimental system,” but I have a very distinct recollection of the fact that this accusation was very freely, and very unjustly, brought against the army reformers in Lord Cardwell’s time.  Of these, Lord Wolseley was certainly the most distinguished.  I think he will bear me out in the assertion that it was only by civilian support that, in the special instances to which I allude, the opposition was overcome.]

[Footnote 54:  Much the same proceeding appears to have been adopted in the Red River expedition, which was conducted with such eminent success by Lord Wolseley in 1870.  But there was a difference.  Lord Wolseley, in describing that expedition, says:  “The Cabinet and parliamentary element in the War Office, that has marred so many a good military scheme, had, I may say, little or nothing to do with it from first to last.  When will civilian Secretaries of State for War cease from troubling in war affairs?” In the case of the Soudan campaigns, on the other hand, Lord Kitchener and I had to rely—­and our reliance was not misplaced—­on the Cabinet and on the parliamentary elements of the Government, to prevent excessive interference from the London offices.]

[Footnote 55:  I was present for a few weeks, as a spectator, with Grant’s army at the siege of Petersburg in 1864, but the experience was too short to be of much value.]

[Footnote 56:  Art of War, Jomini, p. 59.]