To questions of this sort it is obviously impossible to give certain and dogmatic answers. There are occasions when national feeling runs away with policy and overbears considerations of military prudence. The effects of sudden panic, of a sense of bitter injustice, of blind pride or overweening confidence, are incalculable upon any mathematical basis. But regarding the matter from the point of view of the Kaiser's general staff, whose opinion is usually assumed to be a determining factor in German enterprises, a British Expeditionary Force, amounting to something over 600,000 men, would have been sufficient to prevent the occurrence of a coolly calculated war. And in the event of war arising out of some uncontrollable popular impulse, a British Army of this size would have been enough, used with promptitude and under good leadership, to secure the defeat of the aggressor. An Expeditionary Force of 320,000 men would mean fully trained reserves of something over 210,000 in order to make good the wastage of war during a campaign of six months. Similarly an Expeditionary Force of 600,000 would mean reserves of 400,000. In the former case a total of 530,000 trained soldiers, {329} and in the latter a total of 1,000,000, would therefore have been required.[15] Even the smaller of these proposed increases in the Expeditionary Force would have meant doubling the number of trained soldiers in the British Army; the larger would have meant multiplying it by four. Under what system would it be possible to achieve these results if public opinion should decide that either of them was necessary to national security? The answer was as easy to give as the thing itself seemed hard to carry out. [Sidenote: LIMITS OF VOLUNTARY ENLISTMENT] It had become clear a good deal earlier than the year 1914 that the limit of voluntary enlistment, under existing conditions, had already been reached for the Regular as well as the _Territorial_ Army. If, therefore, greater numbers were required they could only be provided by some form of compulsory service. There was no getting away from this hard fact which lay at the very basis of the situation. If security were the object of British policy, the Expeditionary Force must be fully trained before war broke out. It would not serve the purpose for which it was intended, if any part of it, or of its reserves, needed to be taught their trade after war began. Thoroughness of training--which must under ordinary circumstances[16] be measured by length of {330} training--appeared to be a factor of vital importance. Given anything like equality in equipment, generalship, and position, men who had undergone a full two years' course--like the conscript armies of the Continent--ought to have no difficulty in defeating a much larger force which had less discipline and experience.