The British Army was not highly regarded before World War I; the Kaiser was said to have called it "contemptible"; the French regarded it as a colonial police force with a sideline in high-class ceremonial. Kitchener then arrived on the scene. He was 64 years old, he has raised armies before, was untainted by politics, had fought sweeping campaigns and had always come back victorious. This book tells the story of Kitchener who dutifully accepted the War Ministry for a period of three years and made the unsurprising discovery that he had inherited neither army nor the means of creating one. Yet having called for 100,000 volunteers, he got by the time of his death over 3,000,000.