ine Administrative Staff, developed in
those days, to which I have already referred. I often regret that when
the nation gave its thanks through Parliament to the army, the splendid
contribution made by those who prepared the administrative services was
not adequately recognized. But this arose from the old British tradition
under which fighting and administration were not distinguished as being
quite separate and yet equally essential for fighting. The public had
not got into its head the reality of the process of defining the two
different functions with precision, and of confiding them to different
sets of officers differently trained.

The principle was a novel one in the army itself, and why one set of
officers should be trained at the Staff College and another at the
London School of Economics was not a question the answer to which was
quite familiar, even to all soldiers.

It is, I think, certain that for purely military reasons, even if, in
view of political (including diplomatic) difficulties any party in the
State had felt itself able to undertake the task of raising a great army
under compulsory service, and to set itself to accomplish it, say,
within the ten years before the war, the fulfilment of the undertaking
could not have been accomplished, and failure in it would have made us
much weaker than we were when the war broke out. The only course really
open was to make use of the existing voluntary system, and bring its
organization for war up to the modern requirements, of which they were
in 1906 far short. It is true that the voluntary system could not give
us a substantially larger army, or more than a better one in point of
quality. The stream of voluntary recruits was limited. When the 156
battalions of the line which existed on paper in 1906 were in that year
nominally reduced to 148, there was no real reduction, altho some money
was saved which was required for some other essential military purposes.
For the remaining battalions were short of their proper strength, and
it took all the recruits set free by the so-called reductions to bring
the 148--some of which were badly short of officers and men alike--to
the proper establishment required for the six new divisions of the
Expeditionary Force.

I remember well the then Adjutant-General, Sir Charles Douglas, one of
the ablest men of business who ever filled that position in this
country, informing me at that time that he could not raise a single
fu