Here we were, with British soil actually in contact with an extensive province in the hands of a potential enemy and known to be garrisoned by a considerable body of native troops. Everything pointed to the need for extensive reconnaissance work in the borderland districts with a view to possible eventualities. Numbers of active, intelligent, and adventurous young British officers, admirably fitted for acquiring military information, were stationed on our side of the frontier. And yet when the storm broke we were unprepared to meet it. We had plans worked out in the utmost detail for depositing the Expeditionary Force at its concentration points in French territory. Our naval policy was to all intents and purposes framed with a German war as its ultimate goal. The probability of a conflict with the Boches had for some years past virtually governed our military policy. But in East Africa we were in a measure caught napping. There had been lack of foresight. I had been guilty of this myself, so that I have the less hesitation in referring to it; for I had been at both Tanga and Dar-es-Salaam early in 1908. At the first-named port our ship only spent a few hours, so that any kind of reconnaissance work would have been out of the question. But we lay for four days on end in Dar-es-Salaam harbour, and yet it never occurred to me to examine the place and its immediate surroundings from the point of view of possible attack upon it in the future--this, moreover, after having just given over charge of the strategical section in the War Office. Even allowing for the fact that war with Germany was not looming ahead to the same extent in 1908 as it was from 1909 onwards, there was surely something wrong on that occasion. The start that was made in East Africa in 1914 can only be described as deplorable. Following a custom which to my mind is more honoured in the breach than in the observance, the mortifying results of the attempted maritime descent upon Tanga which ushered in the hostilities, were for a long time kept concealed from the public. That reverse constituted a grave set-back--a set-back on a small scale perhaps, but as decided a one as we met with during the war. Our troops not only lost heavily in casualties, but they also suffered appreciably in _moral_. For months subsequent to that untoward event we were virtually on the defensive in this theatre of war, although we unquestionably enjoyed the advantage in actual numbers, and although the maritime communications were open to our side and closed to that of the enemy. The enemy enjoyed such initiative as there was. Bodies of hostile troops used to cross the border from time to time and inflict unpleasant pin-pricks upon us. The situation was an eminently unsatisfactory one, but what was to be done?