She straddled global trade routes with a Navy quite consciously designed to challenge, and defeat, all the other navies of the world in combination and simultaneously. We were a contented people. Confident, loyal and, by today's polluted standards, innocent. All too soon these standards, or rather the manner in which they were perverted, would exact a terrible price. First into the furnace was the British Expeditionary Force, a tiny professional group of sharpshooters.
Photos show their magnificent physique.
Every one in the Guards regiments had to be over 6ft tall. Soon they were all killed. By 1915 the volunteers were starting to arrive from the recruiting offices. General Haig, the Army commander, had got into difficulties attacking the Germans at Loos. On the second day he put into the battle two complete divisions of volunteers That had just arrived.