Page:Science and the Great War.djvu/50

44 seemed to have been specially designed in order to render the head as conspicuous as possible to the enemy. For naturally this is the effect of the huge flat disk catching the strongest light and further emphasized by sharp contrast with the dark shadow beneath the overhanging brim. I wrote to the War Office on the subject in the autumn of 1914 without producing or expecting to produce any effect. However, about May 12 last I saw in the 'latest news' column of an evening paper that

 'Mr. Tennant announced in the House of Commons this afternoon that the flat-topped circular khaki cap had proved too easily visible, and was to be superseded by the softer cap without a wire frame'.

The want of a scientific spirit in the army has been even more conspicuous, and has led to more tragic consequences in the use of men than in the use of material. Professor Spenser Wilkinson, in the Westminster Gazette for August 14 last, tells us how he came to the conclusion that the army was not getting the best men from Oxford, and yet that for the war he believed to be coming 'the array would need leaders of the highest stamp, men of the same intelligence as is expected from those who make a mark in the learned professions'. The best soldiers at the War Office agreed with him, and he tried to convert first Lord Haldane and then Mr. Asquith to this view, but neither would do anything.

Then came the national crisis, and instantly, even before it was asked, the flower of our youth, in intellect as in every other quality, was at the disposal of the army. Young Oxford almost in a body began to work for commissions. Some among them, says Professor Wilkinson, were 'men whose ability stamped itself upon