The General: The Classic WWI Tale of Leadership. Max Hastings
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heelropes, Curzon was always on the side of propriety, and saw to it that the discussion was short-lived. It did not matter to him – probably he did not know – that the convention prohibiting the discussion in mess of professional matters and of women dated back to the days of duelling, and that these two subjects about which men are more likely to grow angry had been barred then out of an instinct of self-preservation. It was sufficient to him that the convention was established; it was that fact which justified the convention.
And that his conviction was sincere in this respect was obvious. No one who knew him could possibly doubt that he would far rather receive another wound as bad as the one at Volkslaagte – more, that he would far rather go again through all the mental agony of Volkslaagte – than appear in public wearing a bowler hat and a morning coat. Even if he had thought such a combination beautiful (and he really never stopped to wonder whether anything was beautiful or not) he could not have worn it; indeed, it is difficult to imagine anything which would have induced him to do so. The example of the royal family over a series of years might have contrived it, but even then he would have been filled with misgivings.
The feeling of distaste for everything not done by the majority of those among whom he moved (wherever this feeling originated, in the germ or in the womb or at school, or in the Army) had its effect, too, on his professional career. The majority of his fellows did not apply to go through the Staff College; therefore he did not apply. There was only a small proportion of officers who by their ebullient personalities attracted the attention of their seniors; therefore Curzon made no effort to be ebullient in his personality – quite apart from his dislike of attracting attention.
These pushful, forceful persons had a black mark set against them in Curzon’s mind for another reason as well, distinct although closely connected. They disturbed the steady even tenor of life which it was right and proper to expect. If routine made life more comfortable and respectable (just as did the prohibition of shop in mess) the man who disturbed that routine was an enemy of society. More than that, no man had any right whatever to upset the arrangements of his seniors.
There was a very painful occasion when Curzon was commanding a squadron and had just arranged a much-desired shooting leave – it was during the five years that the regiment was stationed in India. Squires, his senior captain, came to him in high spirits, and announced that the War Office had at last seen fit to sanction his application for the Staff College; he would be leaving in a month. Curzon’s face fell. A month from now his leave was due; a fortnight from now would arrive the new draft of recruits and remounts – hairy of heel all of them, as years of experience of recruits and remounts had taught him to expect. He had counted on Squires to get them into shape; Squires could be relied upon to keep the squadron up to the mark (as Curzon frankly admitted to himself) better than any of the remaining officers. Curzon had no hesitation when it came to choosing between the squadron and his leave. He must postpone his shooting, and he had been looking forward so much to the thrill and danger of following a gaur through blind cover.
‘If the orders come through, of course you must go,’ said Curzon. ‘But it’s devilishly inconsiderate of you, Squires. I’ll have to disappoint Marlowe and Colonel Webb.’
‘Blame the War Office, don’t blame me,’ said Squires lightly, but of course it was Squires whom Curzon really blamed. The situation would never have arisen if he had not made his untimely application. It was years before Curzon could meet without instinctive distrust officers with p.s.c. after their name.
That may have been at the root of Curzon’s distrust of theorists about war. It was not often that Curzon could be brought to discuss the theory of war although he would argue gladly about its practical details, such as the most suitable ration of fodder or the pros and cons of a bit and snaffle. But apart from this distrust of theorists because of their tendency to be different, there was also the more obvious reason that the majority of theorists were mad as hatters, or even madder. As soon as any man started to talk about the theory of war one could be nearly sure that he would bring forward some idiotic suggestion, to the effect that cavalry had had its day and that dismounted action was all that could be expected of it, or that machine-guns and barbed wire had wrought a fundamental change in tactics, or even – wildest lunacy of all – that these rattletrap aeroplanes were going to be of some military value in the next year.
There was even a feather-brained subaltern in Curzon’s regiment who voluntarily, in his misguided enthusiasm, quitted the ranks of the Twenty-second Lancers, the Duke of Suffolk’s Own, to serve in the Royal Flying Corps. He actually had the infernal impudence to suggest to the senior major of his regiment, a man with ribbons on his breast, who had seen real fighting, and who had won the Battle of Volkslaagte by a cavalry charge, that the time was at hand when aeroplane reconnaissance would usurp the last useful function which could be performed by cavalry. When Major Curzon, simply boiling with fury at this treachery, fell back on the sole argument which occurred to him at the moment, and accused him of assailing the honour of the regiment with all its glorious traditions, he declared light-heartedly that he would far sooner serve in an arm with only a future than in one with only a past, and that he had no intention whatever of saying anything to the discredit of a regiment which was cut to pieces at Waterloo because they did not know when to stop charging, and that Major Curzon’s argument was a non sequitur anyway.
With that he took his departure, leaving the major livid with rage; it was agony to the major that the young man’s confidential report from the regiment had already gone in to the War Office and could not be recalled for alteration (as the young man had been well aware). Curzon could only fume and mutter, complaining to himself that the Army was not what it was, that the manners of the new generation were infinitely worse than when he was a young man, and that their ideas were dangerously subversive of everything worth preserving.
This picture of Curzon in the years immediately before the war seems to verge closely on the conventional caricature of the Army major, peppery, red-faced, liable under provocation to gobble like a turkey-cock, hide-bound in his ideas and conventional in his way of thought, and it is no more exact than any other caricature. It ignores all the good qualities which were present at the same time. He was the soul of honour; he could be guilty of no meannesses, even boggling at those which convention permits. He would give his life for the ideals he stood for, and would be happy if the opportunity presented itself. His patriotism was a real and living force, even if its symbols were childish. His courage was unflinching. The necessity of assuming responsibility troubled him no more than the necessity of breathing. He could administer the regulations of his service with an impartiality and a practised leniency admirably suited to the needs of the class of man for which those regulations were drawn up. He shirked no duty, however tedious or inconvenient; it did not even occur to him to try to do so. He would never allow the instinctive deference which he felt towards great names and old lineage to influence him in the execution of anything he conceived to be his duty. The man with a claim on his friendship could make any demand upon his generosity. And while the breath was in his body he would not falter in the face of difficulties.
So much for an analysis of Curzon’s character at the time when he was about to become one of the instruments of destiny. Yet there is something sinister in the coincidence that when destiny had so much to do she should find tools of such high quality ready to hand. It might have been – though it would be a bold man who would say so – more advantageous for England if the British Army had not been quite so full of men of high rank who were so ready for responsibility, so unflinchingly devoted to their duty, so unmoved in the face of difficulties, of such unfaltering courage.
It might be so. But in recounting the career of Lieutenant-General Sir Herbert Curzon it would be incongruous to dwell on ‘mays’ or ‘mights’. There are more definite matters to record in describing the drama of his rise.
The first step came even before the declaration of war, during the tense forty-eight hours which followed mobilization. Curzon was in the stables supervising the arrival of the remounts which were streaming in when a trooper came running up to him and saluted.