No more fortunate
selection than this could have been made. Above all else, Lord
Kitchener's reputation had been won as an able transport officer.
In the emergency, as Minister of War, the responsibility for the
transport of a British army oversea rested in his hands. On August
5, 1914, the House of Commons voted a credit of $100,000,000, and
an increase of 500,000 men to the regular forces. Upon the same
day preparations went forward for the dispatch of an expeditionary
army to France.
The decision to send the army to France, instead of direct to a
landing in Belgium, would seem to have been in response to an urgent
French entreaty that Great Britain mark visibly on French soil
her unity with that nation at the supreme crisis. For some days
previously British reluctance to enter the war while a gleam of hope
remained to confine, if not prevent, the European conflagration,
had created a feeling of disappointment in France.
The British expeditionary army consisted at first--that is previous
to the Battle of the Marne--of two and a half army corps, or five
divisions, thus distributed: First Corps, Sir Douglas Haig; Second
Corps, General Smith-Dorien; Fourth Division of the Third Corps,
General Pulteney. The Sixth Division of the Third Corps and the
Fourth Corps under General Rawlinson were not sent to France till
after the end of September, 1914. It contained besides about one
division and a half of cavalry under General Allenby.
Pages:
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49