Don't let the War stop you rolling your Easter egg!

[George Armstrong Custer]

From our perspective as the future historians to whom he makes reference, it's difficult not to share Haig's incredulity in this diary entry from Easter 1916:

Monday, April 17 [1916]

I motored with Doris to Charing Cross Station and left by the 8.20 a.m. train for Folkestone, the ordinary boat express. Only Heseltine was with me as A.D.C. as I wished the others to have the full ten days' leave. My Priv. Sec. (Sir P. Sassoon) met me at Folkestone. We arrived there at 10 a.m. but the steamer did not start till 11 o'clock. It was very crowded owing to leave having been stopped between the 18th and 25th. This was ordered from home because of the inability of the Railways to deal with the Easter holiday traffic, as well as with the officers and men coming on leave from the front. The number of the latter is about 1,400 to 1,500 a day. I wonder what the future historian will write about Great Britain, whose inhabitants in a period of crisis, insist that these holiday makers should be given preference in travelling to soldiers from the seat of war.

[per ardua per mare per terram]

Was that the reason that the government started running the railways?