war cannot read these
paragraphs too closely, and we may be sure that every paragraph in
them will be a text for comment and illustration in the history
schools of the future. The Despatch, moreover, is full of new
information on points of detail, and gives figures and statistics
which have never yet been made public. There are not, however, many
persons outside the Armies who will give themselves to the close study
of a long military despatch. Let me try, then, before I wind up these
letters of mine, to bring out very shortly both some of the fresh
points of view and the new detail which make the Despatch so
interesting. It will be seen, I think, that the general account given
in my preceding letters of British conclusions on the war, when tested
by the Despatch, may still hold its own.

In the first place, the Field Marshal dwells in words of which the
subdued bitterness is unmistakable, on Great Britain's unpreparedness
for the war. "We were deficient in both trained men and military
material, and, what is more important, had no machinery ready by which
either men or material could be produced in anything like the
necessary quantities." It took us, therefore, "two and a half years to
reach the high-water mark of our infantry strength," and by that time
we had lost thousands of lives, which, had we been better prepared,
need never have been lost.

And, moreover, our unpreparedness, and the fact that we were not able
to take a full share in the war till the summer of 1916, terribly
wasted the man-power of France. "The excessive burden," says Marshal
Haig, "thrown upon the gallant Army of France during that period
caused them losses the effect of which has been felt all through the
war and directly influenced its length." Meanwhile, what might have
been "the effect of British intervention on a larger scale, in the
earlier stages of the war, is shown by what was actually achieved by
our original Expeditionary Force."

Who was responsible for this unpreparedness?

Sir Douglas Haig does not raise the question. But those of us who
remember the political history of the years from 1906 to 1914 can
hardly be in doubt as to the answer. It was the Radical and
anti-militarist group of the Liberal party then in power, who every
year fought the Naval and Military Estimates--especially the
latter--point by point, and stubbornly hampered the most necessary
military provision, on whom, little as they intended or foresaw it, a
t