mike snook 2
Joined: 04 Jan 2006 |
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Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2014 4:00 pm |
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Dawn
It's commonplace but unsound to closely couple Cardwell with Childers. They are distinct episodes. The first post-Cardwell War was, therefore, not the AZW, but the Second Asante War of 1873-4. In fact abolition of purchase was accompanied by a generous compensation scheme, which cost the taxpayer between 5 and 6 million pounds.That was a lot of money in the 1870s. Formerly the value of a an officer's commission had served as his pension pot - so one of the consequences of abolition was the necessity to introduce a pukka pension scheme subsequently. It is easy to imagine that the purchase system was responsible for all sorts of injustices, especially if one likes one's history and one's politics to coincide, as so many people do these days, but in fact there were effective checks and balances and, as long as one was not absolutely impoverished, it would be rare to languish, while others repeatedly passed by. If an officers died in service, his vacancy went as of right to the most senior officer in the next rank down. If it was sold it had to be offered, in the first instance, to the most senior officer in the next rank down; only if he didn't have the money would it be offered to the next most senior and so on down the scale. You couldn't just walk in through the front door of the mess and buy a lieutenant colonelcy as people seem to imagine. A far more serious impediment to military efficiency than purchase, in my view, was the notion of promotion by strict seniority in non-regimental (i.e. non-purchase) grades (which is to say full colonel and upwards). This was to continue for many years to come. I daresay people will have noticed how many of our young Victorian heroes end up as major generals or higher - that's because there's nothing to stop them. As long as you were fit to serve, you would click through the senior ranks, as one of the next higher vacancies worked its way, by means of deaths and retirements, inexorably into one's lap. You did not have to be a competent colonel to become a major general, you just had to stay alive long enough.
The RE and RA did not practice purchase. In practice there was lots more mobility in the infantry and cavalry, than in the gunners and engineers, so that subalterns in those latter arms were much more venerable in age than in the former. This was not helpful as it often meant that RE and RA senior officers were somewhat gouty round the edges. The RE had great difficulty in fielding fighting-fit colonels in the Crimea, where, as you will be well aware, it was a little too chilly at times for senior citizens to be living in tents.
A vast subject in the detail....but there's a quick entre for starters.
Regards
Mike
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