In the first place, what military trainers there were in the country had to be sent abroad with the first Expeditionary Force.  Adjutants, N.C.O.’s, all the experienced pilots in the Flying Corps, nearly all the qualified instructors in physical training, the vast majority of all the seasoned men in every branch of the Service—­down, as I have said, to the Army cooks—­departed overseas.  At the very last moment an officer or two were shed from every battalion of the Expeditionary Force to train those left behind.  Even so, there was “hardly even a nucleus of experts left.”  And yet—­officers for 500,000 men had to be found—­within a month—­from August 4th, 1914.

How was it done?  The War Office answer makes fascinating reading.  The small number of regular officers left behind—­200 officers of the Indian Army—­retired officers, “dug-outs”—­all honour to them!—­wounded officers from the Front; all were utilised.  But the chief sources of supply, as we all know, were the Officers’ Training Corps at the Universities and Public Schools which we owe to the divination, the patience, the hard work of Lord Haldane. Twenty thousand potential officers were supplied by the O.T.C’s.  What should we have done without them?

But even so, there was no time to train them in the practical business of war—­and such a war!  Yet their business was to train recruits, while they themselves were untrained.  At first, those who were granted “temporary commissions” were given a month’s training.  Then even that became impossible.  During the latter months of 1914 “there was practically no special training given to infantry subalterns, with temporary commissions.”  With 1915, the system of a month’s training was revived—­pitifully little, yet the best that could be done.  But during the first five months of the war most of the infantry subalterns of the new armies “had to train themselves as best they could in the intervals of training their men.”

One’s pen falters over the words.  Before the inward eye rises the phantom host of these boy-officers who sprang to England’s aid in the first year of the war, and whose graves lie scattered in an endless series along the western front and on the heights of Gallipoli.  Without counting the cost for a moment, they came to the call of the Great Mother, from near and far.  “They trained themselves, while they were training their men.”  Not for them the plenty of guns and shells that now at least lessens the hideous sacrifice that war demands; not for them the many protective devices and safeguards that the war itself has developed.  Their young bodies—­their precious lives—­paid the price.  And in the Mother-heart of England they lie—­gathered and secure—­for ever.

* * * * *

But let me go a little further with the new War Office facts.