I should like to say how much the Committee of Imperial Defense, which was originally a very valuable contribution made by Mr. Balfour, when Prime Minister, to the organization of our preparedness for war, owed to its secretaries.  To such men as Admiral Sir Charles Ottley and, after his time, to Colonel Sir Maurice Hankey, the nation is under a great debt, and it was the least that could be done to include the latter in the thanks of Parliament to the sailors and soldiers to whom our actual success was due.  It was he who, assisted by a brilliant staff on which the late Colonel Grant Duff was prominent, planned and prepared that remarkable War Book, which was completed in excellent time before the outbreak of hostilities, and which contained full instructions for every department of Government which could be called on to assist if war broke out.  Not only the drafts of the necessary orders, but those of the necessary telegrams, were written out in advance under Sir Maurice Hankey’s instructions.  He and Sir Charles Ottley, themselves sailors, formed real links between the navy and the army, and did an enormous amount of work in co-ordinating war objectives.

Of the Navy I need say nothing, for its preparations are well understood.  Nor need I say much of the details in the reorganization of the army.  The general principle of this was to complete the Cardwell system by shaping the home battalions into six great divisions, and so providing them with transport, munitions, stores, and medical and other equipment, as to make them instantly ready for war.  The characteristic of the old British Army, as it was up to 1907, was, as I have already observed, that it lived in peace formations only, in small and detached units which would have to be refashioned into quite different formations before they could be ready to be sent to fight.

This state of things involved much delay in mobilization.  A careful inquiry made in 1906 disclosed that in order to put even 80,000 men on the Continent, a period which might be well over two months was the minimum required.  Besides this great difficulty, the other items to which I have referred as required for the six divisions were not there in any shape even approaching sufficiency.  The artillery too was deficient.

There is no more amusing myth than the one according to which the horse and field artillery were reduced.  The batteries which could be made instantly effective for war were, in fact, raised from forty-two to eighty-one.  The personnel of this artillery was increased by a third for mobilization.  For the first time the horse and field artillery was given the modern organization which Cardwell had not been able to give it.  The establishments had been merely peace establishments.  There were ninety-nine batteries which could parade about on ceremonial occasions, but if war had broken out they would have had to be rolled up, and the personnel of fifty-seven of them taken to produce the mobilized