OUR WANT OF PREPARATION FOR THE WAR. (To THE EDITOR
or THE SPECTATOR...I SIR,—If Mr. St. Loe Strachey's proposal to stock a million rifles (and presumably corresponding field-guns sufficient for fifty divisions) had been accepted, what treasure of life and of money would have been saved! Joining in 1914 (wills some Militia experience), I had heart-breaking months in England with splendid men eager to get to the front, but without rifles or guns to train with. My division had been embodied some ten months before going to France. Its gunners hail had their guns exactly nine weeks before embarkation. The infantry were almost as badly off for practical training. If in August, 1914, there had been a million rifles and five thousand field- guns in stock, the British nation could have been sending out numerous well-trained divisions in December, 1914. As it was, the New Army divisions sent out in 1913 had had a pitifully small amount of practical training because of the want of rifles
Previous page
