etails of our
existing military organization. That is not an unusual state of
affairs when a new Secretary of State is let loose in the War Office.
But a new Secretary of State as a rule has the time, and is willing,
to study questions of organization and policy closely before embarking
on fresh projects. Lord Kitchener, however, arrived with certain
preconceived ideas and cramped by defective knowledge of the army
system. He had scarcely served at home since he had left Chatham as a
young subaltern of the Royal Engineers. In Egypt, in India, even to a
great extent in South Africa, the troops coming from the United
Kingdom with which he had been brought into contact had been regulars.
He had never had anything to say to the provision of British military
personnel at its source. For the three years previous to the outbreak
of the Great War he had been holding a civil appointment afar off, and
had necessarily been out of touch with contemporary military thought.
There must have been many matters in connection with the organization
of His Majesty's land forces, thoroughly known to pretty well every
staff-officer in the War Office, of which the incoming Secretary of
State was entirely unaware. The British division of all arms of 1914
represented a far larger force than the British divisions of all arms
had represented with which he had had to do in the days of Paardeberg
and Diamond Hill. The expressions "Special Reserve" and "Territorial
Forces" did not, I believe, when he arrived, convey any very clear
meaning to him. He was not, in fact, in all respects fully equipped
for his task.

With many, indeed with most, men similarly placed this might not have
greatly mattered. There were plenty of officers of wide experience in
Whitehall who could have posted him up fully in regard to points not
within his knowledge. But Lord Kitchener had for many years previously
always been absolute master in his own house, with neither the need
nor the desire to lean upon others. Like many men of strong will and
commanding ability, he was a centralizer by instinct and in practice.
He took over the position of War Minister with very clearly defined
conceptions of what must be done to expand the exiguous fighting
forces of his country in face of the tremendous emergency with which
it stood suddenly confronted. He was little disposed to modify the
plans which he had formed for compassing that end, when subordinates
pointed out that these clash