The General. Max Hastings

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       Chapter Three

      There were twelve years of peace between the two wars. It was those twelve years which saw Herbert Curzon undergo transformation from a young man into a middle-aged, from a subaltern into a senior major of cavalry. A complete record in detail of those twelve years would need twelve years in the telling to do it justice, so as to make it perfectly plain that nothing whatever happened during those twelve years; the professional life of an officer in a regiment of cavalry of the line is likely to be uneventful and Curzon was of the type which has no other life to record.

      They were twelve years of mess and orderly room; twelve years of inspection of horses’ feet and of inquiry why Trooper Jones had been for three days absent without leave. Perhaps the clue to Curzon’s development during this time is given by his desire to conform to type, and that desire is perhaps rooted too deep for examination. Presumably preparatory school and Haileybury and Sandhurst had something to do with it. Frequently it is assumed that it is inherent in the English character to wish not to appear different from one’s fellows, but that is a bold assumption to make regarding a nation which has produced more original personalities than any other in modern times. It is safer to assume that the boldness and insensitiveness which is found sporadically among the English have developed despite all the influences which are brought to bear to nip them in the bud, and are therefore, should they survive to bear fruit, plants of sturdy growth.

      Whether or not Herbert Curzon would have displayed originality, even eccentricity, if he had been brought up in another environment – in that of his cousins, Maudie and Gertie and Dick Cole, for instance – it is impossible to say. It sounds inconceivable to those of us who know him now, but it might be so. There can be no doubt whatever, on the other hand, that during the middle period of his life Curzon was distinguished by nothing more than his desire to be undistinguishable. The things which he did, he did because other people had done before him, and if a tactful person had been able to persuade him to defend himself for so doing he could only have said that to him that appeared an entirely adequate reason for doing them.

      When as a senior captain in the regiment he quelled with crushing rudeness the self-assertiveness of some newly arrived subaltern in the mess, he did not do so from any feeling of personal animosity towards the wart in question (although the wart could not help feeling that this was the case), but because senior captains have always quelled self-assertive young subalterns.

      He was a firm supporter of the rule that professional subjects should not be discussed in the mess. Whether the subject rashly brought up was ‘The Tactical Employment of Cavalry in the Next War’ or the new regulations regarding 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 СКАЧАТЬ