He was in two moods on this occasion. He was as light-hearted as a boy who is unexpectedly released from school; the reason being that the Army Medical Officer had that morning passed him as physically fit to go abroad with Sir Douglas Haig, to whom he had acted as Senior Staff Officer since the previous autumn.

His other mood was very different. The war which he had foreseen and dreaded, the war which in his view might have been avoided upon one condition, and one only—if England had been prepared—had come at last. I don't think I have ever known any one—certainly never any anti-militarist—whose hatred and horror of war gave the same impression of intensity and reality as his. Not metaphorically, but as a bare fact, his feelings with regard to it were too deep for words; he would suddenly break off speaking about things which had occurred in his own experience; in particular, about loss of friends and comrades. He was an Irishman, and had not the impassive coldness of some of the great soldiers. But most of all he hated war when it was not inevitable—when with foresight and courage it might have been averted—as in his opinion this war might have been  .

In radium there is said to be a virtue which enables it to affect adjacent objects with its own properties, and to turn them, for a time, and for certain purposes, into things of the same nature as itself. Certain rare human characters possess a similar virtue; but although I have met with several of these in my life, there is none of them all who seemed to me to possess this quality in quite so high a degree as Gough. He was an alchemist who made fine soldiers out of all sorts and conditions of men, and whose spirit turned despondency out of doors .

The clearness of his instinct and the power of his {xxxiv} mind were not more remarkable than his swiftness of decision and indomitable will. There are scores—probably hundreds—of young officers who fought by his side, or under him, at Ypres and elsewhere, who years hence, when they are themselves distinguished—perhaps great and famous—and come, in the evening of their days, to reckon up and consider the influences which have shaped their careers, will place his influence first. And there are boys looking forward to the day when they shall be old enough to serve in the King's Army, chiefly from the love and honour in which they held this hero, with his winning smile and superb self-confidence .