proceeded from India to Natal to
take part in the first Boer War in 1881, we actually had to change our
Armstrong breech-loading field-guns for muzzle-loaders on the way,
because breech-loaders had been abandoned at home and there was no
ammunition for them.) Of late years a progressive school had come into
being--technically described as "Young Turks"--who had tried hard to
secure the introduction of four-gun batteries and other up-to-date
reforms, but without having it all their own way by any means. Whether
the Young Turks favoured high-explosive or not, I do not know; but its
absence somehow did rather smack of the reactionary, and, with the
exception of one of its members, the personnel of the Expeditionary
Force appeared to have some grounds for complaint at its
field-batteries having none of this form of ammunition. The one
exception was, in my opinion, its commander-in-chief.

Lord French's account of his achievements in this matter is artless to
a degree. He informs his readers that he was always an advocate for
the supply of high-explosive shell to our horse and field artillery,
but that he got very little support; that such support as he got was
lukewarm in the extreme, and, finally, we are told that the "Ordnance
Board was not in favour of it." Here we have the Chief of the Imperial
General Staff and First Military Member of the Army Council advocating
the adoption in our army of what practically all other armies had
already adopted or were adopting, the adoption of a form of munitions
the value of which had been conclusively demonstrated in encounters of
which the General Staff must have had full cognizance, and he is
turned down by the "Ordnance Board"! If this represents the
Field-Marshal's conception of the position and the duties of the
General Staff and its head, then it is not surprising that, under
another chief, Tanks were dismissed with ignominy by a technical
branch of the War Office in January 1915 without the General Staff
ever having been consulted. The pre-war C.I.G.S. was in a dominating
position amongst the Military Members of the Army Council in virtue of
his high rank and his distinguished antecedents. He was very much more
than a _primus inter pares_. He was a field-marshal while the
Master-General of the Ordnance was a colonel with temporary rank of
major-general. Surely, if he had pressed this matter before the Army
Council, he would have received support? I feel equally sure that,
sup