it.  If this were to be even a possible attitude for Great Britain, the French Government had intimated to him that it was in its opinion desirable that conversation should take place between the General Staff of France and the newly created General Staff of Great Britain, as to the form which military co-operation in resisting invasion of the northern portions of France might best assume.  We had a great Navy, and the French had a great Army.  But our Navy could not operate on land, and the French Army, altho large, was not so large as that which Germany, with her superior resources in population, commanded.  Could we, then, reconsider our military organization, so that we might be able rapidly to dispatch, if we ever thought it necessary in our own interests, say, 100,000 men in a well-formed army, not to invade Belgium, which no one thought of doing, but to guard the French frontier of Belgium in case the German Army should seek to enter France in that way.  If the German attack were made farther south, where the French chain of modern fortresses had rendered their defensive positions strong, the French Army would then be able, set free from the difficulty of mustering in full strength opposite the Belgian boundary, to guard the southern frontier.

Sir Edward Grey consulted the Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Asquith, and myself as War Minister, and I was instructed, in January, 1906, a month after assuming office, to take the examination of the question in hand.  This occurred in the middle of the General Election which was then in progress.  I went at once to London and summoned the heads of the British General Staff and saw the French military attache, Colonel Huguet, a man of sense and ability.  I became aware at once that there was a new army problem.  It was, how to mobilize and concentrate at a place of assembly to be opposite the Belgian frontier, a force calculated as adequate (with the assistance of Russian pressure in the East) to make up for the inadequacy of the French armies for their great task of defending the entire French frontier from Dunkirk down to Belfort, or even farther south, if Italy should join the Triple Alliance in an attack.

But an investigation of a searching character presently revealed great deficiencies in the British military organization of these days.  We had never contemplated the preparation of armies for warfare of the Continental type.  The older generals had not been trained for this problem.  We had, it was true, excellent troops in India and elsewhere.  These were required as outposts for Imperial defense.  As they had to serve for long periods and to be thoroughly disciplined, they had to be professional soldiers, engaged to serve in most cases for seven years with the colors and afterwards for five in the reserve.  They were highly trained men, and there was a good reserve of them at home.  But that reserve was not organized in the great self-contained divisions which would