ARMY REFORM.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2608, 16 August 1882, Page 3

ARMY REFORM.

Now that we are m“king preparations for a Military Expedition, the public are naturally inquiring how wo stand at present under the working of the new system of Army Boform What oan wo do ? To these questions (says the “ Mail ”) it may bo answered, in the first place, that the whole of the military requirements for an Army Corps have been worked out upon paper, and are actually in existence, though, it must be confessed, not always where they ought to be, or where they would be most easily available on the spur of the moment. It may be said, however, that the First Army Corps is practically ready, that it consists of regiments whose men and officers ore fairly well acquainted with each other, though some time is yet required to complete this desirable end, and that what we may call its advanced guard is already at Gibraltar and Malta, The Second Army Corps is not complete, bnfc it can be made so in a short time by calling out the Ko-ervea, or even a portion of them, for nothing like the whole would bo necessary. There would remain quite sufficient Beserve men to supply all casualties which would be likely to happen during a short campaign without sending to the regiment in the field a single raw recruit. We are not optimists, and are far from saying that this is all that England ought to be capable of doing; but it is at least more than has over been possible to the country since the Peninsular War, and it admits of the dispatch of a force of British troops greater than the Duke of Wellington ever commanded. Compared with the vast array of continental armies, this organisation may appear insignificant; but it is probably enougfi for the present purpose, and the English Army is now so constituted that it oan, by the use of means and arrangements already made, place a force in the field which, combined with the power of the Fleet in the Mediterranean, must be regarded by foreign nations os at least respectable.