re
asked to do. They were quite different to professional soldiers, who
are kept and paid through years of peace for this particular purpose
of war; who spend their lives practising their profession and gaining
promotion and distinction; and who, on being confronted with the
enemy, fulfil the great ambition of their lives.

Equally distinct were the Territorials also from what has been called
the New Army, whose officers and men had ample time to prepare themselves
for what they were required to do.

I wonder, sometimes, if the eyes of the country will ever be opened to
what these Territorial soldiers of ours have done.

I say without the slightest hesitation that without the assistance
which the Territorials afforded between October, 1914, and June, 1915,
it would have been impossible to have held the line in France and
Belgium, or to have prevented the enemy from reaching his goal, the
Channel seaboard.

Between the beginning of November and the end of the Battle of Ypres,
Territorial battalions were constantly arriving. A special training
camp was formed for them at St. Omer under a selected commander. This
post was admirably filled first by Brigadier-General Chichester, and
later by Brigadier-General Oxley.

I have already told of the fine work done by the Oxfordshire Hussars
and the London Scottish--the first Territorials to enter the line of
battle.[1] Their splendid example was well followed, and the record
they established nobly maintained by each unit of the Territorial Army
as it successively took its place in the trenches.

[Footnote 1: The North and South Irish Horse went
to France much earlier than these troops but were
employed as special escort to G.H.Q.]

Of these units, the Warwickshire Horse Artillery Battery detrained at
St. Omer in the beginning of November. Of the cavalry, the Oxfordshire
Hussars disembarked at Dunkirk about the middle of September; the
Northumberland Hussars came to France in October; the Leicestershire,
North Somerset, Essex and Northampton Regiments of Yeomanry
during November; and the Surrey towards the end of December.

All these units received a course of training in the St. Omer camp of
instruction. I often rode amongst them, and was much impressed by the
fine material in men, horses and equipment of which they were
composed, and with the rapid progress which they made.

I knew from my experience as Inspector