d modified it in some respects. Its purport
when presented was that the proper course to pursue with regard to
Egypt would be to depend upon holding the line of the Suez Canal, and
some minor areas in front of it, as a comparatively small force would
suffice for the purpose.

Lord K. was much disappointed. He sent for me, expressed himself as
strongly opposed to our view, and he seemed rather hurt at the
attitude we had taken up. He favoured the despatch of a body of troops
to the Gulf of Alexandretta with the idea of carrying on a very active
defence; he wished to keep the enemy as far away from Egypt as
possible for fear of internal disturbances, and this opinion was, I
know, concurred in by Sir R. Wingate and Sir J. Maxwell. We should, no
doubt, have concurred in that view likewise, had there been unlimited
numbers of divisions to dispose of, and had there been no U-boats
about. But an army merely sufficient to hold the Egyptian frontier
would have been entirely inadequate to start a campaign based on the
sea in northern Syria, and experiences in the Dardanelles theatre of
war hardly offered encouragement for embarking on ventures on the
shores of the Levant. Lord K. called Sir D. Haig, who happened to be
over on short leave at the time, into counsel; Sir Douglas supported
the contention that a comparatively small force distributed about the
Canal would render things secure. The Chief then despatched General
Home (who in those days was known rather as an expert gunner than as
commander of aggregates of army corps) to Egypt to report; I had
ceased to be D.M.O. before the report came to hand, but I believe that
it favoured our plan, the plan which actually was adopted and which
served its purpose for many months.

A good many of us in the War Office were a little inclined to cavil at
our Chief's deliberation in the matter of demanding a system of
national service, when the country had arrived at the stage where
expansion of the fighting forces was no longer hopelessly retarded by
lack of war material. But, looking back upon the events of the first
year of the war, one realizes now that if he made a mistake over this
subject it was in not establishing the principle by statute at the
very beginning, in the days when he was occupying a position in the
eyes of his countrymen such as no British citizen had enjoyed for
generations. He could have done what he liked at the start. The nation
was solid behind him. Not Great Br