This is a presentation delivered by Mr Allan Mallinson at the RUSI World War I Conference 2014.

3. “There are a great many advantages in a
voluntary army; there are a great many
disadvantages in a voluntary army. But
whatever the advantages, and whatever the
disadvantages, there is this constant factor in a
voluntary army: it solves no military problem
alone – none. . . In 1914, if we take that year,alone – none. . . In 1914, if we take that year,
there was not one single campaign that the wit
of man could imagine where the right answer
was ‘Six Regular divisions and fourteen
Territorials.’ ”

15. “The first rule is therefore
to enter the field with an
army as strong as possible.”army as strong as possible.”

16. “No doubt it would have been a great advantage if… we could
have produced, at the outbreak of the war, 2,000,000 men, so
trained as to be the equals in this respect of German troops,
and properly fashioned into the great divisions that were
necessary, with full equipment and auxiliary services. But to
train the recruits, and to command such an army when
fashioned, would have required a very great corps offashioned, would have required a very great corps of
professional officers of high military education, many times as
large as we had actually raised. How were these to have been
got?”
Viscount Haldane, Before the War (1920)

17. “During the eight years that preceded the war, the cabinet
devoted a ridiculously small percentage of its time to a
consideration of foreign affairs . . . Education, Temperance,
Land Taxation, culminating in the most serious constitutional
crisis since the Reform Bill – the Parliament Act – Home Rule,
and the Disestablishment of the Church in Wales: these
subjects challenged an infinite variety of human interests,subjects challenged an infinite variety of human interests,
sentiment and emotion.”
David Lloyd George, War Memoirs (1934)