Kitchener is one of the greatest reserve-supply men in the world. He is a natural-born banker; he keeps his eye on his reserves fully as much as on his activities, and perhaps more so.
When he called for 100,000 troops the British public became weary and demanded to know how long before he would get them. This gave an impression throughout the world that English recruiting was very slow; but when forced to show down his hand, Kitchener had to admit that under the call for 100,000 men he had accepted many more and was still accepting.
Then they raised the call to a million, and in December Kitchener had more than 1,000,000 men under that call, but I was particular to ascertain that he had not made a call for a second million. It was all under the call for 1,000,000 men to arm.
But I did learn from authoritative sources that a house-to-house canvass, and millions of circulars sent out, had received responses that showed the War Office where the number of recruits, or men in training, could be quickly put above 2,000,000 the moment there was need or room for them.
When England sent her first expeditionary force of 100,000 men to the
Continent there was no public report of how steadily it was augmented.
The official announcement was simply that the line should not be
diminished and that all losses should be made good.
An American acquaintance of mine, whom I found in France fighting in the uniform of the English, had made the declaration from his quick perception of the situation at the outset that if before January 1 the English should have sent over only another 100,000 men, they would have only 100,000 left there at the end of the year.
I found his estimate of losses correct. The English casualties at the end of 1914 were over 100,000,—killed, wounded, prisoners, and missing,—or fully the number of the first Expeditionary Force.
Yet every week and every month the forces of the English grew larger and never smaller. The filling in of the gaps and the augmentation of the English forces and their maintenance, munitions, and supplies was but the smaller part of the work of the War Office.
The great problem was to compass the situation as a worldwide war and summon and put into an effective fighting machine the resources of the Empire.
"Not alone the men but the machinery," said Kitchener, "must win this war."