To my personal knowledge he sent for one officer long known to him and took him from a command in which he was comfortably placed and sent him, against his will, to raise one of our battalions in a difficult area.

The choice was absolutely sound, and success was achieved by methods which did not always follow strictly the letter of King's Regulations.

But these departures from rule were quite in accordance with the spirit of the old Army, and Lord Kitchener was ready to stand over any of them.

He would do the best he could for our division on the old lines.

He would, I am certain, have said that he had done the best thing possible for it in appointing to the command an Irishman who was a first-rate soldier and a first-rate man to supervise the training of troops.