The fighting nation : Lord Kitchener and his armies / by A.J. Smithers.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 202-204) and index.

In the summer of 1914 France, by military incompetence, came near to breaking after the first shock of war. At the same time, the British Army was absurdly weak in numbers, under officered and wholly without the means of expansion to anything that might be reckoned formidable in a war between great powers. Kitchener appeared the one man who had the ability to save the country from itself. He was 64 years old, had had surprisingly little to do with the British Army and yet appeared the only possible choice. He had raised armies before, was untainted by politics, had fought great sweeping campaigns and had always come back victorious. Kitchener, having dutifully accepted the War Ministry for a period of three years or the duration of the war, made the unsurprising discovery that he had inherited neither army nor the means of creating one. Yet having called, in the first instance, for 100,000 volunteers, he got by the time of his death over 3,000,000.