What was the British Empire doing while the Germans were overrunning Belgium? At home, the War Office[217] was working night and day to equip and dispatch an army for service in France. The Territorials were stationed at all the points which needed defence, and the recruiting offices were very busy. On all the hoardings appeared placards calling upon men between the ages of nineteen and thirty-eight to serve their king and country. Every day fine, stalwart recruits, full of energy and zeal, flocked to the colours. Large camps were formed in the south of England, and the work of training the new armies was carried on with the utmost speed. But what of Britain overseas? The Germans had been taught to believe that the British Empire was only a very loose collection of states, with no bond of union between them and the mother country. It was a jerry-built empire, so they thought, and they were assured that when the time of stress came it would tumble to pieces like a house of cards. Canada, they said, was drifting towards the United States, and would one day be part of that country; Australia had long wished to "cut the painter;" South Africa was yearning to throw off the yoke; India was a powder magazine which would explode with a spark; Egypt was only waiting for a chance of rising in revolt. The moment a great trial of strength came there would be an end of the British Empire. Such was the belief of the Germans. What really happened you shall now hear. [Illustration: Men of the New Army drilling in Hyde Park, London. _Photo, Central News._] One of our poets speaks of the peoples of the Dominions as "Children of Britain's island-breed, To whom the Mother in her need Perchance may one day call." That day had arrived. The Mother in her need had called, and with one heart and one voice her sons across the seas replied, "Lo! we come."