But the breath,
the winnowing blast of the national need was behind it all. By the end
of the first year of war, the "problem of quartering the troops in the
chief training centres had been solved."
In the next place, there were no clothes. A dozen manufacturers of khaki
cloth existed before the war. They had to be pushed up as quickly as
possible to 200. Which of us in the country districts does not remember
the blue emergency suits, of which a co-operative society was able by a
lucky stroke to provide 400,000 for the new recruits?--or the other
motley coverings of the hosts that drilled in our fields and marched
about our lanes? The War Office Notes, under my hand, speak of these
months as the "tatterdemalion stage." For what clothes and boots there
were must go to the men at the Front, and the men at home had just to
take their chance.
Well! It took a year and five months--breathless months of strain and
stress--while Germany was hammering East and West on the long-drawn
lines of the Allies. But by then, January 1916, the Army was not only
clothed, housed, and very largely armed, but we were manufacturing for
our Allies.
Pages:
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72