on men on the lines in France and Flanders, and in
December, 1915, the addition of another million men to the Army was voted
by Parliament, bringing up the British military strength to approximately
four millions, excluding Colonials. And what of the Dominions? By
November, 1915, Canada and Australia alone had sent us forces more than
equal to the whole of that original Expeditionary Force, that
"contemptible little army" which, broken and strained as it was by the
sheer weight and fierceness of the German advance, yet held the gates of
the Channel till England could fling her fresh troops into the field, and
France--admirable France!--had recovered from the first onslaught of her
terrible and ruthless enemy.

In one of my later letters I hope to give some particulars of this first
rush of men, gathered from those who witnessed it and took part in it.
One remarkable point in connection with it is that those districts most
heavily employed in munition-making and coal-mining, the two industries
absolutely indispensable to our Army and Navy, have also sent the largest
supply of men to the fighting line--take, for instance, Newcastle and the
Clyde. There have been anxious episodes, of course, in the great
development. Was your own vast levy in the Civil War without them? And for
the last half million men, we have had to resort, as Lincoln resorted, to
a modified form of compulsion. There was, no doubt, a good deal of
unnecessary waste and overlapping in the first camp and billeting
organization of the enormous forces raised. But when all is said, did we
not, in the language of a French observer "improvise the impossible"?--and
have we not good reason to be proud?--not with any foolish vainglory, but
with the sober and resolute pride of a great nation, conscious of its
past, determined to correct its mistakes, and looking open-eyed and
fearless towards the future?

Then as to munitions: in many ways, as you will perhaps say, and as I
agree, a tragic story. If we had possessed last spring the
ammunition--both for ourselves and our allies we now possess, the war
would have gone differently. Drunkenness, trade-union difficulties, a
small--very small--revolutionary element among our work people--all these
have made trouble. But the real cause of our shortage lay in the fact that
no one, outside Germany, realised till far into the war, what the
ammunition needs--the absolutely unprecedented needs--of this struggle
were going to