Nor was there in England the same anti-militarism which prevailed in France amongst a large section hypnotised by the engaging doctrine of high-minded theorists. There was no anti-militarism, for the reason that there was no militarism; England was not a military power. And thoughtful Frenchmen have been immensely impressed by the speed with which she became one. The unchanging England had become changed out of all recognition. I remember that when Rodin went first to England, he was struck by the eighteenth-century aspect of the people and their institutions. In the houses and in the streets he met types such as Gainsborough and Lawrence painted. Their clothes even had not changed, for though English women nominally wear French fashions, they individualise them and adapt them to their own tastes. And this friendly observer was constantly meeting in the unchanging women evidences of the eternal England in their classic features and fresh complexions, their dignified carriage, splendid shoulders and fine open countenances. Even the clothes—the broad hat and the use of scarfs and trinkets for the adornment of the person—signified the same thing. And in military matters this faithfulness to the past was every whit as pronounced. The English Army was unchanging in its traditions, habits and customs, in its equipment and even in its names. As M. Germain Bapst, the French battle historian, has pointed out, the names of commanders remained unaltered from the Peninsular War and Waterloo to the Crimea. Men purchased commissions in the British Army until after the Franco-German War, and only a quarter of a century has elapsed since soldiers were whipped. In 1894 there were forty-six sentences of this sort carried out. There was little or no change in the army from the Crimea to the Boer War. Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener were the two magicians who awakened England from her lethargy.