ne thing for the army
corps of a great Continental State, in which everyone has been
practising his own special part precisely as he will be engaged in
war, to march straight upon its enemy in its then existing formation,
and it is quite another to draw together a staff formed of men, each
of them experienced both in war and peace, none of whom have worked
together, while few have fulfilled the identical functions which they
have to discharge for the first time when bullets are flying and
shells are bursting. It will so often appear in the course of this
history that the operations seriously suffered, because the necessary
links between a general in command and the units which he has to
direct were inadequate, that it is only fair to the many officers of
excellent quality who were employed on the staff that the nature of
this comparison should be clearly appreciated. It was no fault of
theirs, but a consequence of that past history which had built up the
British Empire, that they had neither previously worked together, nor
practised in peace time their special part in an organisation which
had, in fact, to be created anew for the immediate task in hand.

[Sidenote: The total forces of Empire.]

[Sidenote: Short service.]

When the war began, and when there were in South Africa, as already
narrated, 27,054 troops,[79] there nominally stood behind them, if all
those who were armed and equipped throughout the British Empire be
included, more than a million men. These were of every religion, of
many colours, types and classes. On the 28th July, 1899, the Prime
Minister had made for the kingdom a self-denying declaration by which
one vast body of these forces was eliminated from the campaign. He
announced that none but white soldiers would be employed by us. Of
white men, 67,921 were in India, 3,699 in Egypt, 7,496 in Malta, 5,104
in Gibraltar, 738 in Barbados, 570 in Jamaica, 1,599 in Canada, 1,896
in Bermuda, 962 in Mauritius, 1,689 in China and Hong Kong, and 1,407
in the Straits Settlements. Even these are only examples of the nature
of the duties on which the great mass of the British army was
employed. They are chiefly interesting, because the proportion between
the 67,921 men and the millions of the subject races of India, between
the 3,699 men and the vast regions throughout which they maintained
order under the sway of the Khedive, suggests to how fine a point had
been carried the doing of much with mere represen