Before the members of the Imperial Press Conference left for
their provincial tour they witnessed an exceedingly interesting review at Aldershot on Friday, the 11th. No one who saw the troops and watched their work could doubt the high quality of the British Regular Army as it exists to-day, both as regards officers and men. Eyewitnesses were indeed reminded of the Duke of Wellington's remark to Creevey at Brussels just before Waterloo. The Duke, pointing to a soldier going up the steps of a chureb, said:—"It all depends upon that article. If there were enough of him I should have no doubts." General Smith-Dorrien, like everybody else who entertained the Conference, took a great deal of trouble to make things clear to his visitors. Perhaps one of the most impressive illustrations of his exposition was the parade of a body of eighteen guns of horse artillery raised to war strength. To provide eighteen guns with their full complement of horses and with their complete ammunition train no less than a thousand horses are required. The guns and ammunition' trains and necessary transport when on the march cover a mile and a half of road. Yet in a big modern battle a hundred and eighty guns would not be a very large number. But that would mean ten thousand horses, and the blocking of some fifteen miles of road should it prove necessary to get the guns away quickly or to change their position.
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