vision
of the revolution was but the first impression of a reality equally
vast and new. The first levies which came to be called popularly
Kitchener's Army, because of the energy and inspiration with which he
set himself to their organisation, consisted entirely of volunteers.
It was not till long after the whole face of England had been
transformed by this mobilisation that the Government resorted to
compulsion to bring in a mere margin of men. Save for the personality
of Kitchener, the new militarism of England came wholly and freely
from the English. While it was as universal as a tax, it was as
spontaneous as a riot. But it is obvious that to produce so large and
novel an effect out of the mere psychology of a nation, apart from its
organisation, was something which required tact as well as decision:
and it is this which illustrated a side of the English general's
character without which he may be, and indeed has been, wholly
misunderstood.

It is of the nature of national heroes of Kitchener's type that their
admirers are unjust to them. They would have been better appreciated
if they had been less praised. When a soldier is turned into an idol
there seems an unfortunate tendency to turn him into a wooden idol,
like the wooden figure of Hindenburg erected by the ridiculous
authorities of Berlin. In a more moderate and metaphorical sense there
has been an unfortunate tendency to represent Kitchener as strong by
merely representing him as stiff--to suggest that he was made of wood
and not of steel. There are two maxims, which have been, I believe,
the mottoes of two English families, both of which are boasts but each
the contrary of the other. The first runs, "You can break me, but you
cannot bend me"; and the second, "You can bend me, but you cannot
break me." With all respect to whoever may have borne it, the first is
the boast of the barbarian and therefore of the Prussian; the second
is the boast of the Christian and the civilised man--that he is free
and flexible, yet always returns to his true position, like a tempered
sword. Now too much of the eulogy on a man like Kitchener tended to
praise him not as a sword but as a poker. He happened to rise into his
first fame at a time when much of the English Press and governing
class was still entirely duped by Germany, and to some extent judged
everything by a Bismarckian test of blood and iron. It tended to
neglect the very real disadvantages, even in practical lif