‘The vital part which the Territorial Force played at the beginning of the war.... Had its organization been used to build up the War Army,’ he remarked, ‘as was originally intended and conceived by Lord Haldane, to whom we owe a great debt, we should have avoided many of the difficulties that confronted us at the outset, and we should have put a larger efficient force in the field at an earlier stage.’ Our account of the West Riding Troops in the period before the war were best concluded on this note. Up to the measure of their achievement, they are entitled to their share of the praise, and no useful purpose would be served by recounting in terms of drill-hall and barrack-room accommodation the same tale of official procrastination and delay, some features of which we have noted in relation to equipment and arms. In September, 1911, General Baldock[16] succeeded Sir George Bullock as General Officer Commanding the Division, and his term of service extended into the war epoch. His summer camp in 1912 trained partly on Salisbury Plain (where the Mounted Brigade encamped for the first time outside Yorkshire), partly at Ad Fines, Buddon, Skegness, and other places, with the 2nd and 3rd General Hospitals at Netley. The weather was uniformly bad, so much so that a letter was addressed by the Army Council to Northern Command, expressing ‘their appreciation, and that of the Secretary of State for War, for the excellent spirit which was shown by the Territorial Troops in Camp this year. The weather has been most inclement, and the soldierly spirit in which the Troops bore their discomfort was most praiseworthy.’ The attendance of ranks below officers reached 85 per cent. of strength, of whom 60 per cent. trained for fifteen days. The corresponding percentages for 1913, when the weather was remarkably fine, rose to 88 and 66 respectively. Full arrangements were made for an Annual Camp in 1914, at dates between May 21st and August 16th, and many units, as we shall see, were in training when the summons came to mobilize.