less than two years the United Kingdom was, mainly by the exertions
of the War Office, transformed into a Great Military Power. That
achievement covers up many transgressions.

It has to be remembered that in this matter the detractors had it all
their own way during the struggle. Anybody harbouring a grievance,
real or imaginary, was at liberty to air his wrongs, whereas the
mouths of soldiers in a position to reply had perforce to remain
closed and have to a great extent still to remain closed. The
disgruntled had the field pretty well to themselves. Ridiculous
stories for which there was not one atom of foundation have gained
currency, either because those who knew the truth were precluded by
their official status from revealing the facts or because no one took
the trouble to contradict the absurdities. Some of these yarns saw the
light in the newspapers, and the credulity of the public in accepting
everything that happens to appear in the Press is one of the
curiosities of the age. Not, however, that many of the criticisms of
which the War Office was the subject during the protracted broil were
not fully warranted. Some of them were indeed most helpful. But others
were based on a positively grovelling ignorance of the circumstances
governing the subject at issue. Surely it is an odd thing that,
whereas your layman will shy at committing himself in regard to legal
problems, will not dream of debating medical questions, will shrink
from expressing opinions on matters involving acquaintance with
technical science, will even be somewhat guarded in his utterances
concerning the organization and handling of fleets, everybody is eager
to lay the law down respecting the conduct of war on land.

A reference has been made above to the extraordinary difficulties
under which the War Office laboured during the war. The greatest of
these, at all events during the early days, was the total
misconception of the international situation of which H.M. Government
had been guilty--or had apparently been guilty--during the years
immediately preceding the outbreak of hostilities. No intelligible and
satisfactory explanation of this has ever been put forward. Their
conduct in this connection had been the conduct of fools, or of
knaves, or of liars. They had been acting as fools if they had failed
to interpret auguries which presented no difficulty whatever to people
of ordinary intelligence who took the trouble to watch events. They
had