London at the End of the Century:A Book of Gossip
a Beckett, Arthur William
1900
THE MILITIA AT THE FIRST MANOEUVRES.
But pieces at the Olympic of (or thereabouts) have not much to do with the Autumn Manoeuvres of the present time. A subject much nearer home is the way things were done in , just twenty-seven years ago. I had the honour of taking part in the first series of Autumn Manoeuvres, which were held in the neighbourhood of Aldershot. I was a lad in those distant days, but had the pleasure of being a subaltern in charge of a company in the Militia. The battalion to which I belonged was selected for manoeuvring, and sent from the suburbs of the metropolis to the wilds of Cove Common. We knew of our destination long before we received the official information from . An enterprising firm of outfitters in Aldershot sent us a circular giving us the prices for camp furniture. This was the herald of what was to follow. My regiment had not been permanently embodied since the Mutiny, and consequently the battalion had a considerable sum standing to its credit at the Army Agents'. In spite of an | |
166 | increased subscription for the year, we had to dip into our reserve to the tune, or, perhaps, I should say more appropriately, regimental march of several hundreds of pounds. We had, amongst other things, to hire a mess tent, the one provided by the War Office being utterly out of proportion with our requirements. From a financial point of view sending the Militia to the Autumn Manoeuvres in those days spelt disaster. And I am not at all sure that the course was entirely beneficial, even from a military point of view. We had six weeks on Cove Common before we made a move, and it was during those forty-two days we were supposed to get into shape. But this was not an easy task. When at home in our barrack square we had our squad, company, and battalion drill, with just enough musketry to make things interesting. But at Aldershot we were for ever being called away from our work to attend brigade drill or to take part in a march out. Our general, too, had rather a small opinion of our (regimental) honesty. He assumed that nearly every militiaman spent a month with the colours and the rest of the time in the hands of |
