by having dwelt in a groove for
years, to accept it as a principle that this tremendous conflict into
which the Empire had been plunged at a moment's notice was to be a
kid-glove transaction. Within three weeks the Foreign Office and the
Home Office were, however, praying us in the War Office for goodness'
sake to take all questions in connection with the internment and so
forth of aliens entirely off their hands because they could make
nothing of the business.

The above reference to my having been virtually left in the lurch with
regard to these, to me, occult matters is not made by way of
complaint. It is made because it illustrates with signal force how
completely the relative importance of the Expeditionary Force as
compared to the task which the War Office had to face had been
misunderstood when framing plans in advance for the anticipated
emergency. Colonel Macdonogh became head of Sir J. French's
Intelligence Department in the field. That was a very important
appointment and one for which he was admirably fitted, but it was one
which many other experienced officers in the army could have
effectually filled. The appointment at the War Office which he gave up
was one which no officer in the army was so well qualified--nor nearly
so well qualified--to hold as he was, and it was at the outbreak of
war incomparably the more important appointment of the two. The
arrangement arrived at in respect to this matter indicated, in fact, a
strange lack of sense of proportion. It argued a fundamental
misconception of the military problem with which the country was
confronted.

In his book, "_1914_," in which he finds so much to say in
disparagement of Lord Kitchener, Lord French has very frankly admitted
his inability to foresee certain tactical developments in connection
with heavy artillery and so forth, which actual experience in the
field brought home to him within a few weeks of the opening of
hostilities. Most of the superior French and German military
authorities who held sway in the early days of the struggle would
probably similarly plead guilty, for nobody in high places anticipated
these developments. The Field-Marshal, on the other hand, makes no
reference to any failure on his part to realize in advance the
relatively insignificant part which our original Expeditionary Force
would be able to play in the great contest. He makes no admission as
to a misconception with regard to the paramount problem which faced