New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-05-26

When. in August, 1914, the war burst upon
Furope IL found Great Britain. just about as
unpreparcd for war as a country could well
be. Thanks to our national habit o. TAXING
the benevolent intentions Of our neighbors
for granted, We had yielded to the assur-
anccs of those politicians who held that the
best way to keep out Of war is to remain un-
prepared for war. The result was that when
the little British regular army-the so-callcd
cxpcditionary force-hurled it's contemplate
little self across the Channel to the discom-
future Of the divine dispositions of the Kaiser,
il went alone-nerved to the grmmer deter
mination by Lord Kitchener's explicit assur-
ancc that it need expect no reinforcements
for at least six months, for the very simple
and most convincing reason that there were
no achievements TO send. That little force
was probably the best equipped. the best led
and the finest body of troops ever put into
the field by Great Britain. They fought the
greatest rearguard action in history, and
they fought it, week after week, without once
breaking their formation or losing their
morale. But-they fought it alone. Their
own country could not help them.
The Rush to Enlist
However, to be just, the moment the clear
call came there was never any difficulty
whatever about getting more men. They en-
listed in swarms. The difficulty was, on the
spur of the moment, TO organize machinery
that would handle them-feed them, house
them, equip them and get them into fighting
trim. Men stood in the street for days, in
long and most pathetic queue, waiting to en-
list. and as most of them had thrown up
their jobs in order to do so they were al
most starving before they were taken in.
The ordinary recruiting Offices, showed un-
der delegated great deal of their work,
perforce, to amateur organizations, such as
local political clubs. These proceeded to
enroll recruits with a zeal which rather lost
sight of the fact that the humblest recruit
possesses a personality and stomach of his
own. When 2 man joins the British army
he first of all fills up and signs what is called
an attestation paper and takes the oath. He
is then dispatched. with his paper to the
headquarters Of his regiment, where he hands
over the paper and is duly enrolled. At
least, that is what happens in normal times.
In the fall of 1914, at any hour of given
day or night, some fifty or hundred sur
prisingly cheerful individuals were apt to
arrive at regimental headquarters and an
nounce, usually in chorus, TO the overdriven
officers in charge that they had come for
tae jine the Army They were asked for
their attestation papers. These were not
always forthcoming Sometimes they had
been treated like the historic "scrap Of
paper" but more often the society which
had enrolled the man had held his paper
back with view to mailing it forward in
bunch with others at some more convenient
season. The trouble was that until these
papers were forthcoming the men could not
be regarded as soldiers and no public money
could be expended upon them. They might
neither be fed nor clothed nor (officially)
housed This threw a heavy private burden
upon the officers whose slender resources
we're strained to the uttermost to provide for
this officially non-eXistent multitude. How
ever, ultimately the papers arrived and all
concerned embarked upon the task of finding
an owner for each paper. Owing to the
paucity Of Scottish tribal names, Scottish
battalion was particularly difficult to index,
and the task of sorting out the Vulnerable