work of Lord Haldane. _Twenty thousand potential officers were supplied_
by the O.T.C's. What should we have done without them?

But even so, there was no time to train them in the practical business
of war--and such a war! Yet _their_ business was to train recruits,
while they themselves were untrained. At first, those who were granted
"temporary commissions" were given a month's training. Then even that
became impossible. During the latter months of 1914 "there was
practically no special training given to infantry subalterns, with
temporary commissions." With 1915, the system of a month's training was
revived--pitifully little, yet the best that could be done. But during
the first five months of the war most of the infantry subalterns of the
new armies "had to train themselves as best they could in the intervals
of training their men."

One's pen falters over the words. Before the inward eye rises the
phantom host of these boy-officers who sprang to England's aid in the
first year of the war, and whose graves lie scattered in an endless
series along the western front and on the heights of Gallipoli. Without
counting the cost for a moment, they came to the call of the Great
Mother, from near and far. "They trained themselves, while they were
training their men." Not for them the plenty of guns and shells that now
at least lessens the hideous sacrifice that war demands; not for them
the many protective devices and safeguards that the war itself has
developed. Their young bodies--their precious lives--paid the price. And
in the Mother-heart of England they lie--gathered and secure--for ever.

* * * * *

But let me go a little further with the new War Office facts.