The British Army, now grown out of all recognition, was small, and known to be small, when the war began. It was a voluntary army, numbering approximately 700,000 men, of whom about 450,000 (including reservists) were trained soldiers, liable for service abroad, and the remainder, a half-trained Territorial Force, enrolled for service at home. Besides being small, it was, from the nature of its duties, widely scattered. Over 100,000 of our best troops were serving at the time in India or on foreign stations. For all purposes, therefore, when war broke out, we had in this country a mobilizable army of something under 600,000 trained and half-trained men, 250,000 of whom were liable only for service at home. The striking or Expeditionary Force of this army was a fully equipped and highly professional body of six infantry divisions and one division of cavalry, and with this force we entered the war. Intended primarily, as its name implied, for protective or punitive operations within the Empire, it was on a scale proportionate to its purpose and to the size of our army. Our army, judged by a European standard, being small, our Expeditionary Force, judged by that standard, was diminutive; and the chief problem which confronted the Government, when it was decided to send this force to France, was how to support and supplement it. The story of how this problem was faced and overcome, of how "Home Service" men became "Foreign Service" in a day, and our little army of 700,000, by a gigantic effort of British determination and Imperial good-will, was expanded into an army of millions--all this is a separate narrative, to be related elsewhere; but we cannot afford to overlook it as we follow the fortunes of the Expeditionary Force in France and Flanders. It is the military background of all their triumphs and vicissitudes, and had an effect upon the tone of the war almost from the first. Even to our Expeditionary Force itself, with all its cheerful self-confidence and efficiency, it meant something to know that the country was in earnest; that as early as August 23, while they were still fighting among the coal-pits of Mons, the first 100,000 volunteers had been enrolled, and were already deep in the mysteries of forming fours. *THE RETREAT FROM MONS*