The Spectator at war: The willing badge

From ‘The “Willing” Badge’, The Spectator, 6 March 1915:

A final ground for giving badges to those who have offered themselves and been rejected must be mentioned. Under any scheme for the presentation of badges a register should be kept giving in general terms the ground on which each man was rejected—namely, medical reasons, such as heart weakness, and so on; physical defects, as, for example, some small deformity or some defect of vision; or, again, some such ground as inability to reach the standard of height or the standard of chest measurement. In the last two cases it may well be that the Government will come to see that after all small men can fight and march quite as well as big men, and endure hardship even better. Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington, and Lord Roberts were all men of very small stature, and yet, quite apart from their intellectual abilities, they were physically good soldiers.