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Banjo Paterson - Our Underpaid Army
Work rating: Low

Napoleon made his Marshals out of mud,
And Cromwell’s Ironsides were mostly tanner,
But nowadays our officers have blood,
And lots of cash, and regulation manners:
And each must own a wardrobe so extensive
That dying for one’s country comes expensive.

The ‘Tommy’ simply doesn’t care a groat,
The war is barred to him from rising higher:
For how could he with cheap and shabby coat
To hold his own with social swells aspire.
He lacks the three great aids to high position
Viz. Money, Petticoat or Politician.

The Cavalry look down on ‘Mounted Fut”
And “Mounted Fut’ at Infantry will snigger,
And infantry esteem themselves a cut
Above the C.I.V. – the humble figure
That drives a squadron cart, cries as he passes,
“Hi! Clear de way dere, you dashed lower classes!”

and nowadays each little cheap success
is quite enough to set the country yelling,
with big black headlines in the daily press
and D.S.O.’s thrown out like pom-poms shelling.
With people drinking, Mafficking and bawling,
Our frenzied self-laudation is appalling!

When Wellington sent news to Waterloo
A  quarter-page of print was all he needed.
He praised his soldiers in a line or two
And twenty pages-full of ‘Killed” succeeded.
But nowadays we go into hysterics
Over ‘one bullet wound and two enterics”.

No matter who goes ‘in’ or who goes ‘out’
Or whether Liberal or whether Tory
Misleads the country, still beyond all doubt
It’s just the same old melancholy story.
The army isn’t open to the Nation
It’s sacred ground for some rich man’s relation.

There is no hope: the whole concern is worked
In the sole interest of the ‘upper classes’
Enquires will be resolutely Burked.
And die unheeded when the clamour passes.
The word reform makes leading people shiver
They hold their prey like we held Eland’s River.

The Army knows! They knew the worthless man
And who got drunk! And who was simply silly.
They likewise know that by the present plan
The eye-glassed impotent from Piccadilly
Gets most rewards! – In silence they abide it.
They talk within the mess but not outside it.

And some folks hoped the when old Kandahar
Took charge, we might see some great reformation.
But no! Reform seems every bit as far
As ever. Think what consternation
There’d by in Mayfair if he recommended
That all incompetents should be suspended.

We know how Remount men were sent away
For horses, and the scandals so unhappy!
And some were shred enough – too shrewd they say – 
But most were what they call ‘A Dear good chappie”.
But business training! Why, they never had one!
If sent to buy a pile they’d buy a bad one.

Clear out the titled men! Let men come in
Who are not asked to pay for being shot at
Make idle luxury an army sin
Some faint reform might then perhaps be got at.
But until then – I don’t wish to alarm ye
But until then you’ll never have an army!

But when I am against the social clique
A field-mouse in a foreign furrow straying
But all the same I’ll raise my valiant squeak
And say the thing that badly needeth saying.
There are no doubt some faults in a democracy
But Lord preserve us from an aristocracy!
Source
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