He was a hard and shrewd man and a living legend, as familiar a symbol of the empire as the King. Other members of the government and the army were skeptical when he predicted that the main German invasion force would cross Belgium before entering France, incredulous when he warned that the war was going to last three years at least and that Britain would have to build an army of a million men. He was right on all points. In the end not a million but five and a half million men would serve in His Majesty’s armed forces.
