Tuesday, 16th February 1915

Tunstill’s Company resumed their training at Aldershot, following their return from Eversley.

It was at some point in the next few days that Major General Babington, commanding 23^rd Division, was at last able to secure the khaki uniform to replace the detested ‘Kitchener Blues’ which they had been wearing to date. The author of the Divisional History later related how this came about,

‘The secret of the diplomatic coup which secured this can now for the first time (1925) be made public. To relate it in General Babington’s own words: “The issue came about in this wise. I happened to be in the C.O.O.’s office and found him talking on the telephone to his chief at the War Office. I said, ‘Tell him to draw us khaki’. The answer was, ‘Impossible’. I then said, ‘Tell him Lord K. is going to inspect us’. We got the khaki at once!” Discretion forbids too close an inquiry as to the grounds the Divisional Commander had at that time for his statement’.  

The truth appears to be that Babington had bluffed his way into securing the new uniform; he had no intimation at the point that he made his claim that ‘Lord K.’ (Kitchener) had any plans to inspect the Division, even though Kitchener was indeed shortly to do so (see 28^th February).