bearers of a proposal that our
ancient ally should furnish a division to fight under Sir J. French's
orders on the Western Front. Our Government, as it happened, were not
anxious, on political grounds which need not be gone into here, for
open and active co-operation on the part of Portugal at this time.
Regarding the question from the purely military point of view, one
doubted whether the introduction into the Flanders war zone of
Portuguese troops, who would require certain material which we could
then ill spare before they took the field, would not be premature at
this early juncture. When tactfully interrogating concerning the
martial spirit, the training efficiency, and so forth, of the rank and
file, one was touched rather than exhilarated by the head of the
mission's expression of faith "ils savent mourir." The officers
composing the mission were, however, enthusiasts for their project,
and they were on that account somewhat difficult to keep, as it were,
at arm's length. But Lord K.'s management of the problem was masterly.

In the course of a protracted conference in his room, he contrived to
persuade our friends from Lisbon that the despatch of the division at
this moment would be a mistake from their, and from everybody else's,
point of view, and he extracted promises out of them to let us have
many thousands of their excellent Mauser rifles, together with a
goodly number of their Schneider-Canet field guns. The small arms (of
which we were horribly short at the time) proved invaluable in South
Africa and Egypt, while the guns served to re-equip the Belgian army
to some extent with field artillery. He managed to convince the
mission that this was by far the most effective form of assistance
which Portugal could then afford to the Entente--as was indeed the
case--and he sent them off, just a little bewildered perhaps, but
perfectly satisfied and even gratified. One felt a little bewildered
oneself, the whole business had been conducted with such nicety and
discretion.

His name counted for much in the armies of the Allies, as I myself
found later wherever I went in Russia. Foreign officers coming on
official errands to London, attached an enormous importance to
obtaining an interview with him, and he was very good about this. "Oh,
I can't be bothered with seeing the man," he would say; "you've told
him the thing's out of the question. What's the good of his coming to
me, taking up my time?" "But you see, si