Much has been written and has been said in public about the pushing of the General Staff into the background at the War Office during the early months of the war. An idea exists that this subversion was mainly, if not indeed entirely, consequential on the weakening of its personnel as a body owing to a number of its most prominent and experienced members having gone off to the wars. While readily admitting that its efficiency suffered as a result of these withdrawals, I am by no means sure that it would have managed to keep in the foreground even if the whole of its more shining lights had on mobilization remained where they were in Whitehall. Lord Kitchener had never been closely associated with Generals Robertson and Henry Wilson, its two principal members to leave for the front, and it by no means follows that if they had remained they would, during the first few critical weeks, have been much more successful than were Sir C. Douglas and Sir J. Wolfe-Murray in keeping a hand on the helm. The Secretary of State would no doubt have learnt to value their counsel before long, but he would no more have tolerated the slightest attempt at dictation in respect to the general conduct of the war until he knew his men, than he would have put up with dictation as to how the personnel which he was attracting into the ranks at the rate of tens of thousands per week were to be disposed of. The story of how the General Staff gradually recovered much of its lost ground will, however, be touched upon in the next chapter, and on that point no more need be said at present. It may, however, be remarked here that the comparative elimination of the General Staff was virtually confined to its elimination in respect to what admittedly is its most important function in times of national emergency--advising the Government of the country on the subject of the general conduct of the war--and in respect to the administrative task of actually issuing instructions as to operations to those in supreme command in the theatres of conflict. The duties of the General Staff cover many other matters besides these. They include collection of information, secret service, questions of international law, military education, training of troops, etc. It fulfilled its mission in connection with such subjects just as had always been intended, nor, in so far as they were concerned, was it thrust on one side in any sense. Lord Kitchener's system of centralization only directly affected a small proportion of the very numerous directorates, branches, and sections into which the War Office was divided up. CHAPTER IV LORD KITCHENER'S LATER RECORD