Active service had transformed the officers. They looked as hard and as capable and as self-reliant as their men. They had lost much of their formality of manner; that very scrupulous correctitude of dress had gone; vanished, too, were many of the natty little articles that, but a few months since, had jingled melodiously about them as they marched up from the coast at the head of their platoon or company. Such of them as wore caps had old soft caps, stained with mud and sweat, crushed well on to their heads; many were tunicless, and made their round of the trenches simply attired in grey soldier shirt and old riding-breeches thrust into trench boots, for all the world like the old-time “Forty-niners” of the gold-fields. The link between them and their men was much looser, but much more intimate. It was not difficult to see that the men leant more than ever on their officers, and that the officers, on their side, were beginning to “discover” their men--to discover the soul of the Englishman, as it has never been unbared between Englishmen before, I think--simple, brave, devoted, uncomplaining, inspired by an ocean-deep patriotism not fed from external sources, but springing spontaneous and elemental from within. Both had found themselves and one another, officers and men. It was in the rainy days of the first battle of Ypres that our Territorials first found themselves actually fighting on foreign soil. Of Yeomanry Cavalry, the Northumberland, the Northamptonshire, the North Somerset and the Leicestershire Regiments, and the Oxfordshire Hussars; of Territorial Infantry, the London Scottish, the Honourable Artillery Company, the Queen’s Westminsters, and the Hertfordshire, were engaged. General Sir Julian Byng, commanding the cavalry, made special mention to the Commander-in-Chief of the conduct of the Yeomanry in the field, while, in the case of the Territorial Infantry, Sir Douglas Haig spoke in high terms of their gallant behaviour. On these powerful recommendations Sir John French wrote the sentence in his despatch on the first battle of Ypres which I have quoted at the head of this chapter. It must have been with feelings of peculiar satisfaction that he found himself in a position to pay this well-merited tribute to the Territorials. For he, more than any other, was responsible for the creation of the Territorial Army which was destined to play an invaluable part in the expansion of the Expeditionary Force into the great national army. It was he whom Lord Haldane, fresh to the War Office, summoned to bring his wide experience, his flexible mind, his great knowledge of war, to the task of carrying the Haldane reforms--first and foremost among them the creation of the Territorial Force--to fruitful accomplishment.