“There are a great many advantages in a

voluntary army; there are a great many

disadvantages in a voluntary army. But

whatever the advantages, and whatever the

disadvantages, there is this constant factor in a

voluntary army: it solves no military problem

alone – none. . . In 1914, if we take that year, alone – none. . . In 1914, if we take that year,

there was not one single campaign that the wit

of man could imagine where the right answer

was ‘Six Regular divisions and fourteen

Territorials.’ ”

“The first rule is therefore

to enter the field with an

army as strong as possible.”army as strong as possible.”

“No doubt it would have been a great advantage if… we could

have produced, at the outbreak of the war, 2,000,000 men, so

trained as to be the equals in this respect of German troops,

and properly fashioned into the great divisions that were

necessary, with full equipment and auxiliary services. But to

train the recruits, and to command such an army when

fashioned, would have required a very great corps of fashioned, would have required a very great corps of

professional officers of high military education, many times as

large as we had actually raised. How were these to have been

got?”

Viscount Haldane, Before the War (1920)

“During the eight years that preceded the war, the cabinet

devoted a ridiculously small percentage of its time to a

consideration of foreign affairs . . . Education, Temperance,

Land Taxation, culminating in the most serious constitutional

crisis since the Reform Bill – the Parliament Act – Home Rule,

and the Disestablishment of the Church in Wales: these

subjects challenged an infinite variety of human interests, subjects challenged an infinite variety of human interests,

sentiment and emotion.”

David Lloyd George, War Memoirs (1934)