yeanwhile, the task of raising an army was goin.g forward in Great Britain in a truly British manner. On 6 Aug. 1914, Parliament voted an.increase of the army by 500,000 men, to be raised on the voluntary principle and voted a credit of i100,000,000. The preceding day Lord ICitchener had been appointe&Sec retary of War. and he immediately issued a call for 1,000,000 men. To the troops who went to France in the first expedition he gave the uncomforting assurance that they could ex pect no reinforcements from across the Chan nel for at least six months.
The spirit of the British people was all that could be desired. Recruiting offices were swamped by the numbers that offered, and men stood in line day after day to get up to the doors. The greatest difficulty was to obtain equipment and supplies. To put into operation the vast and intncate machinery of production and distribution necessary to fit out an army demanded organization and reorganization. During the first months the newly recruited men suffered much inconvenience and some hardship because the supplies were not ready. To manufactttre arms and artillery required even greater time. Existing plants were in adequate and trained mechanics were lacking to produce half of what was needed. More over, when the war began British labor, long schooled in the idea that wars are made by capitalists and for the benefit of capitalists, did not fully realize how vitally the outcome would affect the very basis of British life. It took time and some disasters to show them how essential their efforts were to the success of the British arms.
The war found British political life in its accustomed jangling state. Party spirit had to be subdued, and a prime minister had to be found in whose ability and disinterestedness the.people had confidence. All these elements of internal weakness were well known to the Germans, who were as well prepared for war in economic as in military matters. But their delay in the West gave the British people the opportunity to remedy these deficiencies. In fact nothing could have worked better to show the British their defects than the very tri umphs which Germany made in the Southeast. There is nothing the Briton holds more essen tial than the preservation of the empire. To talk about (Berlin-to-Bagdadp -was the Ger man's strongest challenge to the Briton.
Throughout the autumn and winter of 1914-15 vast preparations went on in camp and factory. Compared with what had been done before the war, and what the average man ex pected when the war began, the results were excellent; but com.pared with what was needed they were not satisfactory. The situation de manded every soldier the country could spare from industry and every ounce of industrial energy in the munitions works that could be spared from the production of the essentials of life. To obtain such results no means were adequate short of compulsory service. Every man in the United Kingdom ought to be at the disposal of the government to do that part in the war which he could do best. Such was the course pursued in France and in Germany. But it was a course as foreign to British ideals as to American ideals. The existing, voluntary system was firmly rooted in the British de mocracy, and a democracy changes its point of view slowly.
By the end of 1915 it became evident that the voluntary system bad yielded to the govern ment most of the men it was going to yield. While a large number had joined the colors it was evident that there was still a great num ber who would never kin under the voluntary system It was also observed that a propor tionally large number of these were persons with nobody dependent upon them. Opinion, therefore, slowly. formed for forcing such per sons to take their share of the burden of na tional defense. It came to its triumph when on 14 May 1916, Parliament passed a general con scription act applying to all males from 18 to 41 years of age, Passage of the law not only made it certain that the full soldier strength of the country would be called out, but it abolished the sense of inequality which dwelt in the pqpular mind as long as many able bodied men remained free from military serv ice. We must, however, not forget that the voluntary system served England well in the beginning of the war. By the end of 1914 2,000,000 Britons were in service in the army, and a large number volunteered during the following year. In May 1916 it was said in Parliament that more than 5,000,000 men were then in the military and naval setvice of the country.