

The spirit of individual help towards the national defence had been
clearly shown as that of boyhood when the century was yet in its teens;
in 1853 it had its second stage of youth; and finally in our time was
to grow into first adolescence, and then vigorous manhood.

With all her pride, and its consequent self-sufficiency, with all
her natural self-respect and self-belief, there is no nation really
less military, at the heart of her, than Great Britain. Always a
fighting race, it may be that this is why she is reluctant to fight,
and is therefore always unready. She began the Crimean War with her
usual curious sort of half-reluctant enthusiasm, and with an army of
about the Peninsular type. She finished the war, the only nation then
prepared and anxious to fight on, and, stronger than before, to push
it to a successful termination when her allies were somewhat more than
half-exhausted. But this very reluctance makes her serious when roused.
And the uncalled for insult that she, of all nations in the world, was
open to invasion at the call of French colonels called out all that
curious innate fearlessness of battle which has helped British soldiers
in many a hard-fought field to victory. Never were the English people
more at peace, and more anxious to be. Never did they more willingly
throw that feeling to the winds than when a body of French colonels
insulted the whole English race.

So for a third time the civilian laid aside his mufti and clutched the
uniform and rifle. By the middle of 1859 there were six thousand men
armed and willing to fight. It is not necessary here to enter into
the controversy of the merits or demerits of this force. It began one
way, it has finished another. It began, helped by a fulsome praise
that can only be called hysteric; for the first idea it had was to
reduce or abolish the army for the sake of a force of _not_ soldiers,
but merely men in arms, and which was for a time the laughing-stock
of all Europe! Anything more ludicrous, and from a military point of
view contemptible, 