In short, the close investigation made at that time disclosed that it
was not possible, under the then existing circumstances, to put in the
field more than about 80,000 men, and even these only after an interval
of over two months, which would be required for conversion of our
isolated units into the new war formations of an army fit to take the
field against the German first line of active corps. The French
naturally thought that a machine so slow moving would be of little use
to them. They might have been destroyed before it could begin to operate
effectively. Both they and the Germans had organized on the basis that
modern Continental warfare had become a high science. Hitherto we had
not, and it was only our younger generals who had even studied this
science.

There was, therefore, nothing for it but to attempt a complete
revolution in the organization of the British Army at home. The nascent
General Staff was finally organized in September, 1906, and its
organization was shortly afterwards developed so as to extend to the
entire Empire, as soon as a conference had taken place with the
Ministers of the Dominions early in the following year. The outcome was
a complete recasting, which, after three years' work, made it
practicable rapidly to mobilize, not only 100,000, but 160,000 men; to
transport them, with the aid of the Navy, to a place of concentration
which had been settled between the staffs of France and Britain; and to
have them at their appointed place within twelve days, an interval based
on what the German Army required on its side for a corresponding
concentration.

All the arrangements for this were worked out by the end of 1910. Both
Sir John French and Sir Douglas Haig took an active part in the work.