The Army had had no opportunities for the higher training which was required for European warfare. The parsimony of the Indian Government had put a heavy clog on the military wheel. Money could be had for everything except preparation for war. It was far easier to get thousands of pounds for some perfectly useless scheme which might possibly benefit some local cause, than to extract a hundred pounds for anything to which attached the aroma of the Army. Indeed, so extraordinary was the antipathy to spending a farthing on anything savouring of gunpowder that officers and men, British and Indian, had accepted it as a cardinal principle that expenditure on the Army, however necessary or urgent, was a matter of small concern to the Government, and that, sink or swim, nothing but unforeseen upheaval or disaster, would ever worm a rupee from the civilian rulers in whose hands rested the decision. In England there was at least our Expeditionary Force (or a great part of it) ready for war; its transport and equipment could be completed at the shortest notice, and its Reserves could be quickly called up. But in India, where, if anywhere in the Empire, it was essential that several divisions should be able to take the field at any moment, no such organisation existed. True it is that many thousands of men stood armed and ready to quell local disturbances or Frontier forays, but the mobilisation of a force consisting of even two divisions could not be completed in all its details for weeks. It is no answer to say that India was able to despatch two divisions to Europe at short notice. Two divisions certainly sailed from Karachi and Bombay, but their equipment had to be completed at Marseilles, at Orleans, and actually in the battle area itself, whilst the artillery was only made up by denuding other divisions of their guns. The rifles were of a pattern which did not suit the latest class of ammunition with which the Army at home was supplied, and both rifles and ammunition had actually to be handed into store at Marseilles and fresh arms issued. To any one acquainted with the science of musketry, and that in the days when our infantry had to depend on this arm alone; when hand-grenades and trench mortars were unknown; it will readily be understood that the handicap of going into action with brand new arms was a very real one. Even the machine-guns, which in some cases were much worn, had to be refitted with new tripods as best it could be managed at Orleans. Further, there were no howitzers, no mechanical transport, a scant supply of medical equipment and signalling apparatus, and innumerable other shortages which were essential to a force suddenly dumped down from railhead into the trenches. All these were supplied in abundance in France as soon as it was possible; indeed the excellence and rapidity with which this was done was astonishing to us who remembered the cheese-paring days in