the estimates that he formed of
it thenceforward. Instead of framing his plans with a view to
reinforcing the Expeditionary Force as soon as possible with the
existing fourteen Territorial divisions which were in some measure
going concerns, by affording these special support, he preferred
simply to expand the Territorial Forces as a whole. Four divisions
were sent out of the country on garrison duty before the end of 1914,
but although a number of individual battalions had preceded it, the
first division to be sent to the front (the North Midland) did not
sail from the United Kingdom till the end of February, more than six
months after the outbreak of hostilities, while the two last to take
the field did not leave till early in 1916. The policy may in the long
run have proved the right one; but at the time it did seem a pity not
to have accelerated the preparation of these existing troops for the
ordeal of the field. None of us in Whitehall, however, wished the New
Armies to be set up under the auspices of the Territorial
Associations; that was a different question altogether.

Moreover, whatever was the cause of it, the Territorial divisions
after they took the field seemed to be treated as veritable
Cinderellas for a long time. They generally set out short of
establishment, and they were apt to dwindle away painfully for want of
reserves after they had spent a few weeks on the war-path. The Returns
show this to have been the case. More than one of the divisional
Generals concerned spoke to me, or wrote to me, on the subject in the
later months of 1915. This discouraging shrinkage was not manifesting
itself to at all the same extent at that stage in such New Army
divisions as were at the front.

A good many of us at the War Office also did not, I think, see quite
eye to eye with Lord K. in connection with his piling up of New Army
divisions without providing them with reserves. The tremendous drain
which modern war creates in respect to personnel came as a surprise to
all the belligerents; but the surprise came fairly early in the
proceedings, and the Adjutant-General's department had fully grasped
what this meant, and had realized the scale of the provision necessary
to meet it, by the end of 1914. If I remember aright, one whole "New
Army" (the Fourth, I think it was) had to be broken up in the summer
of 1915, and transformed into a reservoir of reserves, because the
First, Second, and Third New Armies practicall