The Imperial Divide

The biggest waves created by this one day truce was not more hard felt anywhere than in London. This might seem odd seeing as how the British Isles were the one place on earth where direct consequences of the fighting were virtually non existent. The reason this is true is because of the indirect consequences of what, some in the Salisbury Cabinet at least, were seeing as an army wide mutiny. This is the kind of thing that is far more important to an empire with an army that mostly consisted of colonial troops, some of which had questionable loyalty to the empire. When seen in this light, and when you consider that of all the belligerents, the British Empire was the most status quo power, then you can begin to understand the concerns of men like Balfour and Chamberlin.

One might consider that India, the crown jewel of the British economic empire, would have been the first source of trouble but, strangely, India remained largely passive about their overlords. Considering the cultural and ethnic divides this might seem strange but, taking a closer look at the situation puts it very much in perspective and the lack of any real opposition movement in India is completely understandable. The war had very little effect on India in any real sense and, in fact, the changes that came about tended to be positive.

India was a land that was very divided by it’s own choice, it had not ruled itself in centuries, and for most Indians this was seen as perfectly normal. India had contributed troops to the conflict but, a quick look at the journals of many serving British officials, the ethnic concerns prevented large scale recruitment in the nation and the direct military support came from the more traditional segments of the Indian population that had been providing the bulk of the India Trading Company’s troops for at least two centuries. Even most of those troops were used for the security of India and little else.

If anything, life for the average Indian improved during the war. There was almost no fighting around India and where the British had reservations about using most of her population for military purposes, they had no qualms at all in using Indians as a labor force. Emigration for these purposes, to places like South Africa, had been common before the war and hostilities only expanded both the number of emigrants and destinations. All the while, in India itself, not only could the country feed itself from local sources but, suddenly new jobs and industries were growing as a result of the war.

It was not that India lacked an independence movement, they most certainly had one but, this idea seemed to mostly be rooted in the Indian business and community leaders. If these men, most of whom were English educated, had one overriding virtue it was patience. The war was enriching them and laying a modern infrastructure that they fully well understood would strengthen their hand with the British after the war. They were apparently willing to wait. As for your average Indian, who had yet to be really introduced to the idea of nationalism, the idea that was embraced by their local leaders seemed almost absurd. It was certainly not as pressing a matter as problems with other Indians.

That is why it is with great irony that Britain’s problems with her commonwealth would start in the very nations that spoke the same language and of whom, most of their inhabitants, shared the same color of skin. Strangely enough it would also start in areas that had remained virtually untouched by the war and, would not really start until a few years after the commencement of hostilities. Again, this seems counter intuitive but, also again, a close examination reveals that it is perfectly logical. Britain did have considerable support for the commonwealth in most of her Imperial holdings. This is understandable when you consider that most of these lands enjoyed varying amounts of self rule.

The supporters of the commonwealth did not hesitate to rush to the banner of war in 1898 but, by 1901, most of these men were on the front lines, dead, or had changed their minds about their support. The opposition to the British Empire had not been so eager to get involved in the war and many of these men were the ones who stayed home. With the supporters gone, and with at least some democracy, many of them got elected to offices and began to immediately oppose the war. When the legal route did not work, and many agitators were hoping for just that, labor strikes and passive sabotage followed. This would cause the Salisbury cabinet any number of headaches in Australia and New Zealand.

None of the problems down under would become so critical as the developing problems in Canada. Strangely enough, none of them would sneak up so thoroughly on the London government either. The main reason for this seems to be the simple fact that, before the war, Canada was a very quiet and non controversial place. It was strategic and economically important to Britain but, careful control of immigration and the right mix of self rule and imperialism seems to have worked well or, at least, on the surface. Not a single British cabinet, in the years before the war, seems to have dug too deeply into the situation. The reason for this is actually quite simple. Things always ran rather smoothly in Canada and why fix what is not broken? What the British did not realize, at the time, was that not only were the seeds of discontent being sown in Canada but, Imperial policy was one of it’s biggest contributors.

There was nothing very sinister or conspiratorial about some of these imperial policies and, no way that anyone could have foreseen the results. In fact some of the policies were both needed and beneficial while, at the same time, creating side effects that would only matter if certain things were to happen. No one has that kind of clarity of vision about the future. One such policy, quite possibly the single most instrumental, was the reform of the Canadian education situation. I say reform because the laws that were implemented all called themselves reform acts and, for the most part they were. The side effects were another matter.

What was not talked about, in regards to the education system, was what kind of system it was, who invented it, and why. After the Fenian raids that occurred in the aftermath of the American 61, London woke up to the needs of defending her North American possessions. Naturally more Imperial troops were a starting point but, in the event of general war with the United States, the difficulty of transporting an entire army across the Atlantic was recognized and that was including the assumption of naval supremacy by the Royal Navy. With that in mind, it was realized that the bulk of the early defenses would have to be the responsibility of the people who lived in North America.

This is why the education system was eventually, and completely, revamped to a model that was first introduced in Prussia, and then later all of Germany. Eventually all of the major powers would copy this system once it’s true purpose was recognized. While these school systems did teach the classical curriculum of literacy, philosophy, and math, they did something far more. Prussia was presented with the unique problem of making all German speaking people feel more like Germans and less like the little patchwork quilt of states they truly were. There was also the additional goal of militarizing their entire population to deal with the threat of Russia and France. All of this could get a needed boost if everyone was indoctrinated early on.

That’s not to say that these schools taught military arts because most did not. What they did do was get kids used to considering themselves a part of a greater nation and not just a small community. They also got them used to the idea of standing in line, sitting in neat orderly rows, eating generic food, and following simple orders like stand and sit. They also stressed learning by the repeat and remember system of which, in the military, is called drill, drill, and drill. All of these are basic military skills that, if you do not have to teach in basic training, shaves months off the time required to whip raw recruits into at least passable soldiers.

This system was slowly introduced in Canada from the late seventies into the early nineties and, by the time of the war, most Canadians from middle age on down had been exposed to the system to at least some degree. For males, the training only continued after school as every able man was required to do at least some military time even if, letters home bear out that, most never believed they would have to fight. What all of this did was more than just create a war time Canadian military, it created a common culture that transcended class, culture, and even language barriers. It made every Canadian feel as if they belonged to a real country and not just an imperial commonwealth. No one in London seemed to have noticed and, you can’t really blame them because, until the war began to drag out, no one in Canada seemed to have either.

Since 1867, technically and legally, Canada had been an independent nation. The reality on the ground was an entirely different matter. War planners at Pall Mall fully understood the strategic and economic importance of Canada and, with a hostile US, along with one of the longest borders in the world, it was quickly decided in London that Canada could not be trusted with real independence. As a result of this unspoken policy, despite the fact that Canada had it’s own head of state and elected assembly, the real decisions about national policy were all being made by the Governor General, which was a position that was manned by an appointee from Britain. If there was any disagreement between the Governor General and elected officials of Canada, it was usually the Governor General who got his way and he only answered to people in London, usually the Foreign Secretary.

Up till the war this had not really been much of a problem. Canada was fortunate to have been assigned some talented individuals in this office, who were usually eager to work with the local government as opposed to offending it. The man in charge, in 1901 was no exception, no matter how much he has been vilified ever since. The fact was that Gilbert-Elliot-Murray Kynynmound, the 4^th Earl of Minto, was a reasonable choice for the position given the circumstances under which he took office.

Minto had already lived in Canada before he was appointed Governor General. He was a military man, with several campaigns under his belt and, more importantly, he had already served as the military secretary of a former Governor General. Minto helped organize and build Canada’s military infrastructure and there were few who knew it better than he. Minto was familiar with the political landscape of Canada and, for the most part, well liked by local power brokers. He had been assigned to the position with the specter of war looming in the near future and, took office shortly after it began.

With this in mind, one would think that Canada was in good hands and that was the sentiment at Ten Downing. What the Salisbury cabinet did not seem to realize was, that Minto’s very qualifications would be his undoing. His single biggest problem was that, while he was a veteran soldier, most of his time had been spent working staff jobs where he merely advised and then handled the technical details of issuing orders. Minto was, most certainly, in no way qualified to command an entire field army let alone manage an entire theater of war yet, that is exactly what he tried to do.

Minto had the kind of personality that was advantageous to working on a military staff, attention detail and micro managing but, not quite suited to running an entire front and having to make the calls that are needed in a timely manner. When working as a staff officer he was always outspoken and made sure his opinions were heard, even if they were not always followed. As a commander he rarely listened to any of his subordinates and usually made it clear that since he had once held their jobs, he knew them better than they did.

This did not win Minto any friends and, as the war went on, there were fewer an fewer who cared to deal with him. This was very true of the official Front Commander, Major General Redvers Buller, who had been sent to Canada on the very same ship as Minto. Buller was fully of the impression that Minto was going to run the government and that Buller would be in charge of military operations. Once at their posts, Minto made it very clear that he was in charge of everything. Bullers, who lacked any real desire to deal in politics simply went along with Minto. Bullers resentment would only increase and this was agitated by Minto’s relationship with the other principle military figure on the scene, the Canadian General William Otter.

Minto had known Otter since he served as Military Secretary and the two men at least got along. Minto, having been friends with Lord Roberts, started out on shaky ground with Bullers since Roberts and Bullers had been professional rivals for decades. When Minto would even think about seeking military advice, he most often went to Otter who was, in theory at least, the junior of Bullers as well as being a colonial. Most of this infighting was confined to the upper echelon of the British war effort in Canada but, it helped set a tone that the situation would only make worse as the war began turning against the allies. These small cracks would slowly become canyons.

One has to also remember that these three men, all shared common ideals and goals. They were of the same faction and they could not get along. This does not bode well for the theater since the real opposition in Canada was more political, and even cultural, and not military. It was in the political that Minto would almost fail completely because, while military men might disagree, even dislike each other, at the end of the day there is a command structure and orders will be followed. In the world of politics no such thing exists and here, quite often, the world of the radical can work it’s way into the mainstream and particularly in times of war. Radical was a word that was quite often used, in the pre war era, to describe a certain man by the name of Henri Bourassa.