Leaving out of account those troops which were recruited and maintained in India, the Dominions, and the Dependencies, the actual number of British regulars employed in garrison duty abroad was in round figures 125,000 men. The number in the United Kingdom was approximately the same; but by no means the whole of these were fit to take the field. The total strength of the _Regular Army_ in 1912-1913 might therefore be taken at somewhere between 250,000 and 254,000 men,[1] of whom half were permanently out of this country, while from 25,000 to 50,000 could not be reckoned on as available in case of war, for the reason that they were either recent recruits or 'immatures.'[2] {318} The reserves and additional troops which would be called out in the event of a serious war were so different in character that it was impossible simply to throw them into a single total, and draw conclusions therefrom according to the rules of arithmetic. For when people spoke of the _Army Reserve_, the _Special Reserve_, and the _Territorial Army_, they were talking of three things, the values of which were not at all comparable. The first were fully trained fighting soldiers; the second were lads with a mere smattering of their trade; while the third were little more than an organised schedule of human material--mainly excellent--which would become available for training only at the outbreak of war, and whose liability for service was limited to home defence. The sum-total of these reserves and additional troops was roughly 450,000 men; but this row of figures was entirely meaningless, or else misleading, until the significance of its various factors was grasped.[3] [Sidenote: THE THREE RESERVES] The first of these categories, the _Army Reserve_, was the only one which could justly claim to rank as a true reserve--that is, as a fighting force, from the outbreak of war equal in calibre to the Continental {319} troops against which, it would be called upon to take the field. The _Army Reserve_ consisted of men who had served their full time in the _Regular Army_. They were therefore thoroughly trained and disciplined, needing only a few days--or at most weeks--to rub the rust off them.[4] Nominally their numbers were 137,000[5] men; but as over 8000 of these were living out of the United Kingdom the net remainder had to be taken at something under 130,000. Moreover, as the _Army Reserve_ depended automatically upon the strength of the _Regular Army_, and as the strength of this had recently been reduced, it seemed necessarily to follow that ultimately there would be a considerable diminution.