--"When we all
feel it, we think of our soldiers and sailors, doing their
duty--unto death."

And then--to repeat--if the _difficulties of equipment_ were huge, they
were almost as nothing to the _difficulties of training_. The facts as
the War Office has now revealed them (the latest of these most
illuminating brochures is dated April 2nd, 1917) are almost incredible.
It will be an interesting time when our War Office and yours come to
compare notes!--"when Peace has calmed the world." For you are now
facing the same grim task--how to find the shortest cuts to the making
of an Army--which confronted us in 1914.

In the first place, what military trainers there were in the country had
to be sent abroad with the first Expeditionary Force. Adjutants,
N.C.O.'s, all the experienced pilots in the Flying Corps, nearly all the
qualified instructors in physical training, the vast majority of all the
seasoned men in every branch of the Service--down, as I have said, to
the Army cooks--departed overseas. At the very last moment an officer or
two were shed from every battalion of the Expeditionary Force to train
those left behind. Even so, there was "hardly even a nucleus of experts
left." And yet--officers for 500,000 men had to be found--_within a
month_--from August 4th, 1914.

How was it done? The War Office answer makes fascinating reading. The
small number of regular officers left behind--200 officers of the Indian
Army--retired officers, "dug-outs"--all honour to them!--wounded officers
from the Front; all were utilised. But the chief sources of supply, as
we all know, were the Officers' Training Corps at the Universities and
Public Schools which we owe to the divination, the patience, the hard
work of Lord Haldane. _Twenty thousand potential officers were supplied_
by the O.T.C's. What should we have done without them?

But even so, there was no time to train them in the practical business
of war--and such a war! Yet _their_ business was to train recruits,
while they themselves were untrained. At first, those who were granted
"temporary commissions" were given a month's training. Then even that
became impossible. During the latter months of 1914 "there was
practically no special training given to infantry subalterns, with
temporary commissions." With 1915, the system of a month's training was
revived--pitifully little, yet the best that could be done. But during
the first five months of the war most of the infantry sub