An old man does well enough in the latter capacity if he can sit his horse and keep up with his men on foot; and soldiers on the whole like being commanded by old officers. But the general should be the most active man in the force, fresh and unwearied at the critical moment; at the end of the long day, when success may crown the last effort, fit to go on himself, and to urge his troops on when all others are fatigued and seeking rest. Even in the ordinary work of a campaign the general has much more ground to cover in the day's work than those under him, and much more business to get through. To take one instance only. The reader of 'Personal Reminiscences of Wellington's Campaigns' will have understood what a large factor in Wellington's succcess was his extraordinary personal vigour and power of endurance, his faculty of being everywhere where he was wanted, and seeing everything for himself. So with other great commanders: it may be safely asserted that, save in quite exceptional circumstances, no army commanded by a general not in the full vigour of life will achieve any great results, and few men are this after sixty. It may be objected that the experience of the German army in the Franco-Prussian war is opposed to this assertion, because the German generals who did such great things were most of them old men. But that case was peculiar, although even there the leaders of the two chief armies were men in the prime of life. When such very large bodies of men are in the field as were engaged on that occasion, the movements must necessarily be of a more or less leisurely kind, and the leader must perforce see through the eyes of others. Further, it must be observed that, masterly although the strategy was in that war, there was a very sensible want of vigour displayed on more than one occasion in pressing advantages, notably after the battle of Worth, where the Germans allowed the beaten French army to get clear away from them. But it is not given to our generals to command a hundred thousand men in the field. The work they have to do is usually of a very different kind. To command a small expeditionary force of four or five thousand men, thrown into a strange country, perhaps a savage and unhealthy one, and where a high degree of physical endurance is required for proper leading, is what usually falls to the British general; and other things being the same, the younger he is the better he will do the job. The great Duke said, at the end of his campaigns, that he was beginning to "go off" when he was only forty-five; few are the men who do not decline in vigour after they are fifty. If efficiency be the main object, therefore, the rule of age should be as strict for the generals as for the colonels. However, this is a new doctrine which will hardly find acceptance all at once, but at any rate one rule for age might apply to all other ranks. At present, out of consideration for the existing colonels, the limit of age for that rank has been temporarily extended to fifty-nine years, but hereafter is to be reduced to fifty-five; and provided that limit be maintained, all other conditions, such as the obligatory retirement of captains at forty, majors at forty-seven, and lieutenant-colonels at fifty-two, which press very hardly upon individual officers, seem to be unnecessary. If nobody in the army, except the generals, is over fifty-five, there is no fear of the army being too old for its work. The reason alleged for these com-
