Karslake wrote that in 1939, General Edmund Ironside, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), had warned Gort and Dill the Vice-CIGS before the BEF sailed for France, to prepare defence plans for rear areas, quickly to be implemented at communication centres and geographical bottlenecks, for which even the most non-combatant troops must be trained and equipped, but during the Phoney War nothing was done. It was fortunate that Brigadier Archibald Beauman, who had been "dug-out" of retirement, was on hand to organise the lines-of-communication troops south of the Somme, as far as anything could be achieved in the emergency. Karslake (jnr) wrote that had General Karslake been furnished with a staff and the power of command over all British troops, rather than this being vested in the cumbersome and disorganised French command system, the disadvantages under which the lines-of-communication troops were burdened could have been alleviated. When Brooke arrived on 12 June to command the British troops in France, he had no faith in military operations, left his staff at St Malo and concentrated on ending the British presence in France as quickly as possible.