fraction of her youthful ability found its way into the army.
Independent means and social position rather than brains were the
common qualifications for a commission; and what there was to be said
for such a system so long as fighting was mainly a matter of physical
courage and individual leadership lost its validity when war became a
matter of science and mechanical ingenuity. The fact that four of the
six British army-commanders (Plumer, Byng, Rawlinson, Cavan) in the
West at the end of the war were old Etonians, testifies to more things
than their military skill; and it was a characteristic irony that from
first to last the British armies should have been commanded by cavalry
officers in a war in which cavalry played hardly any part.

The commander-in-chief was Sir John French, who had made his
reputation as a cavalry leader in the Boer War and had been chief of
the imperial staff since 1911. As inspector-general of the forces from
1907 to 1911 he had a good deal to do with Lord Haldane's
reorganization of the British Army, and as chief of the staff he was
largely responsible for the equipment of the Expeditionary Force and
the agreement with the French Government with regard to its dimensions
and the way in which it should be used. He was the obvious general to
command it when it came to the test. With similar unanimity the
popular voice approved of the appointment of Lord Kitchener as
Secretary of State for War on 5 August. The Expeditionary Force
consisted of three army corps, each comprising two divisions, and a
cavalry division under Allenby. The First Army Corps was commanded by
Sir Douglas Haig, the youngest lieutenant-general in the army, and the
second by Sir James Grierson, its most accomplished student. Unhappily
Grierson died suddenly soon after the landing, and he was succeeded by
Sir H. Smith-Dorrien, who, like French, had made his name in South
Africa. The Third Corps, under Sir W. Pulteney, came later into the