I was a good deal concerned in the operations in East Africa during the first year and a half of the war, a period of scanty progress and of regrettable misadventures. We enjoyed the advantage, when this question came before Admiral Jackson's committee, of having Lieut.-Colonel (now Major-General Sir A. R.) Hoskins present, who at the time was Inspector-General of the King's African Rifles and was consequently well acquainted with our own territories in that part of the world. From the outset, Hoskins was disinclined to regard operations in this quarter as a sort of picnic, and the event proved that he was right. It was, however, settled that the whole business should be handed over in the main to India to carry out, and that the commander and staff for the contemplated offensive, as well as the reinforcements needed for the purpose, should come across the Indian Ocean from Bombay. At a very early stage it became apparent that our information concerning the enemy districts nearest to the frontier between German territory and British East Africa was defective, while information as to the districts on our own side was not all that might be wished, and I gathered from Hoskins at the time (and also later on from Colonel G. Thesiger, Hoskins' predecessor, who brought home his battalion of the Rifle Brigade from India during the winter of 1914-15 and who was killed when commanding a division at Loos in the autumn of 1915) that the prosecution of active intelligence work had received little encouragement from home during their terms of office. That is the worst of a corps like the King's African Rifles being under the Colonial Office instead of under the War Office, although there are adequate reasons for that arrangement; but I cannot help thinking that if the General Staff had pressed the matter, not much difficulty would have been encountered in altering the Colonial Office's point of view, and that both no doubt were to blame. It may also be remarked incidentally that the Colonial Office probably has no secret service funds at its disposal. Still, be that as it may, there was something amiss.