Next day we spent entirely in the American sector, between Nancy and Toul, where American road directions and sign-boards, and fine, newly-built camps and depots for the American forces met us in all directions. A military policeman from a coloured regiment put us into the right road for St. Mihiel after leaving Toul—a strongly-built, bronzed fellow, dealing with the stream of military and civil traffic at a cross roads in Eastern France with perfect ease and sang-froid. The astonishment and interest of this American occupation of a country so intensely and ultimately national, so little concerned in ordinary times with any other life than its own as France, provincial France above all, never ceased to hold me as we drove on and on through the American sector; especially when darkness and moonlight returned, and again and again as we passed through wrecked villages where a few chinks of light here and there showed a scattered billet or two, the American military policeman on duty would emerge from the shadows, tall, courteous, self-possessed, to answer a question, or show the way, and we left him behind, apparently the only human being under the French night, in sole possession of the ruins round him.

But before darkness fell, during the central part of the day, we had crossed the southern lines of the convergent American attack on St. Mihiel. Trenches and wire-fields and artillery positions had all belonged to the French battle-zone before the Americans took them over, and there had been fierce fighting here by the French in 1915. But for three years the position had changed but little, till the newly-formed First American Army undertook in September the clearing of the Salient.

We left the car near the village of Beaumont, and walked to the brow of the low ridge from which the American attack started. Standing among what had been the tranckees de depart, with the ruins of the village of Seichprey below us to the right, we had before us the greater part of the American battle-field—Thiaucourt in the far north-east; the ridge of Vigneulles, which had been the meeting-point of the converging American attacks coming both from the north-west and the south-east; while in the near foreground rose the once heavily fortified Mont Sec. The American troops went over the parapet at five o'clock on the morning of September 12th, and by the morning of the 13th their forces had met at Vigneulles, and the Salient, with its perpetual threat to the French line, had disappeared. In three more days the Heights of the Meuse had been cleared, and the foremost Americans were already under the fire of the fortified zone protecting Metz.

It was a brilliant but happily not a costly victory. Von Gallwitz, the German Commander, had probably already determined on retirement, when the American attack forestalled him. So that the American troops with certain French units supporting them achieved a great result with small losses; and as the first battle of an independent American Army the operation must always remain one of extraordinary interest and importance, even though, in British military opinion, the palm of difficulty and of sacrifice must be given rather to the splendid fighting on the Marne in June and July, when the Americans were still under French direction, or to the admirable performance of the two American divisions, the 27th and the 30th, serving under Sir Henry Rawlinson, a fortnight after St. Mihiel, on the Hindenburg line. "The original attack," at St. Mihiel, says one of the keenest of British military observers—"was carried out with extraordinary dash by very eager and physically magnificent soldiers." Possibly, he adds, a more seasoned army—the American troops had only had six months' experience in the fighting line!—might have turned the effects of a successful action to greater military advantage than was the case at St. Mihiel. The British or French critic, mindful of the bitter lessons of four years of war, is inclined to make the same criticism of most of the American operations of last year, except the fighting on the Marne in June and July, when French caution and experience found a wonderful complement in the splendid fighting qualities of the American infantry. "But"—adds one of them—"undoubtedly the American Command was learning very rapidly." What an army the American Army would have been, if the war had lasted through this year! The qualities of the individual soldier, drawn many of them from districts among the naturally richest in the world, together with the vast resources in men and wealth of the nation behind them, and the mastery of the lessons of modern war which was already promised by the American Command, during the six months' campaign of 1918—above all, the comparative freshness of the American effort—would, no doubt, have made the United States Army the leading force among the Allies, had the war been prolonged. That is one line of speculation, and an interesting one. Another, less profitable, asks: "Could the Allies have won without America?" The answer I have heard most commonly given is: "Probably yes, considering, especially, the disintegration we now know to have been going on in Germany, and the cumulative effects of the British blockade. But it would have taken at least six months more fighting, the loss of thousands more precious and irreplaceable lives, and the squandering of vast additional wealth in the bottomless waste of war."

Thank God, we did not win without America! The effects, the far-reaching effects, of America's intervention, of her comradeship in the field of suffering and sacrifice with the free nations of old Europe, are only now beginning to show themselves above the horizon. They will be actively and, as at least the men and women of faith among us believe, beneficently at work, when this generation has long passed away.



CHAPTER VII

AMERICA IN FRANCE (CONTINUED)

It was late when we left Verdun, on the afternoon of the day which saw us at its beginning on the southern edge of the St. Mihiel battle-field, and the winter daylight had passed into darkness before we began to run through a corner of the Argonne, on our way to St. Menehould and Chalons, passing by the wholly ruined village of Clermont in Argonne. The forest ran past us, a wintry fairyland, dimly lit by our quickly moving lamps, and apparently impenetrable beyond their range, an optical effect, however, that may be produced in darkness by a mere fringe of trees along the roadside. But I knew while I watched the exquisite effects of brown and silver, produced by the succession of tall, pale trunks rising above the lace-work of the underwood, as scene after scene pressed upon us out of the dark, that we were indeed in a forest country, only some twenty miles away from the scene of General Pershing's drive at the end of last September, when he achieved on the first day an advance of seven miles through difficult country, while General Gouraud was pushing forward in Champagne; and I found myself speculating in the dark on the many discussions I had heard both among English and Americans of that advance, and of the checks and difficulties which, as I suppose is now generally admitted, followed on the first brilliant operations.

During the last few weeks further information has been forthcoming about the Meuse-Argonne battle, as the American operations between the Argonne and the Meuse from September 26th to November 11th are apparently to be known. But a good deal of obscurity still hangs over the details of the fighting. In the British Army I came across the very general belief that the staff and transport work of the advance had been—in the words of a well-known historian of the war—"as was natural with a new army, scarcely adequate to the fighting qualities of the troops engaged." And I often heard regret expressed that the American Command had not been more willing to avail itself of the staff experience of either or both of the older armies, which might—so the British or French spectator thinks—have lessened the casualty lists among extraordinarily gallant but inexperienced troops. "Replacements fresh from home were put into exhausted divisions with little time for training," says General Pershing's report. And "some of the divisions were fighting their first battle." They were faced also at the beginning of the advance by some of the best remaining German troops. When one thinks of all the long and bitter training in the field that went to the perfecting of French or British staff work, and then of the difficult nature of the ground over which the First American Army had to make its way, one can only feel the deepest sympathy for the losses sustained by the fresh and eager troops. The Argonne forest itself had long been recognised as impenetrable to frontal attack, and on the Argonne side of the American twenty-mile front, along the western edge of the valley of the Aire, the ground is still heavily wooded and often very hilly. As one of the ablest military critics, himself a soldier of great distinction, expressed it to me: "Foch had set the Americans an uncommonly hard task!"

But if there was some failure in those matters where neither bravery nor natural intelligence can take the place of long training, and experience in the field, there was no failure in ardour or in spirit. In spite of heavy losses, General Pershing never failed to push on. Starting from a line on the northern edge of the great Verdun battle-field, Montfaucon, the German headquarters during the Verdun fighting of 1916, was captured in three days. Then came severe fighting against fierce counter-attacks, and great difficulties with transport over shell-torn ground and broken roads, difficulties increased by bad weather. But on October 4th the gallant attack was renewed, and by October 10th, owing to the combined effects of the British drive in the north and the pressure on both sides of the Argonne, from General Gouraud on the west and the Americans on the east, the enemy fell back and the famous forest was cleared.

The third and last phase of the fighting began on the 23rd of October. The enemy was now weakening rapidly along the whole of his line. For while the American Army had been stubbornly fighting its way north from Varennes to Grandpre, where it stood on November 1st, the British Armies, in the great Battles of Cambrai-St. Quentin, Ypres, and Courtrai, had not only captured the Hindenburg line and some fifty thousand prisoners, but had brought about—without fighting—the evacuation of Laon and the retreat of the Germans to the line of the Aisne; the German withdrawal, also, to the Scheldt, involving the freeing of Lille and the great industrial district of France; and finally, in concert with Belgian, French, and some American units, the clearing of the Belgian coast, and the recovery of Ostend, Zeebrugge and Bruges. The end, indeed, was rushing on. Co-operation was everywhere maintained, and blow followed blow. "During this period" (6th to 31st October), says the British Commander-in-Chief, "our Allies had been pushing forward steadily on both sides of the Argonne. The enemy was held by their attacks on his southern flank, while to the north the British offensive was driving forward rapidly behind his right."

Then, with November, the British Army, in the Battle of the Sambre, "struck at and broke the enemy's last important lateral communications, divided his forces into two parts on either side of the Ardennes, and initiated a pursuit which only stopped with the Armistice." About one hundred thousand prisoners had been taken by the British Armies since September 26th. "Victory, indeed," in General Gouraud's phrase, "had changed her camp!" Led by her, the British, French, and American Armies streamed east and north through the few days that remained, pursuing a beaten and demoralised enemy. The final American advance was begun on November 1st, and on November 7th patrols of the 42nd Division reached the Meuse at Wadelincourt, opposite Sedan; while the Fifth Division was in the Forest of Woevre, and the 90th Division had captured Stenay.

Some very interesting figures have lately been given as to the forces under General Pershing's command. Altogether some 770,000 men seem to have been employed—both east and west of the Meuse—of whom 138,000 were French. Forty-six German divisions, amounting, according to the American estimate, to about 350,000 men, opposed the American advance. The casualties are given as 115,000—among them 26,000 killed[8]—for the American troops, and 7,000 for the French. The enemy casualties are estimated at 75,000, and 16,000 prisoners were taken.

[8] According to the latest estimate I have seen.

One incident, relatively unimportant, but wonderfully picturesque, is sure to find a place in the American song and story of the future. It was during the rapid advance of the last days, when the far vision of the Rhine was already beckoning forward the victorious Allies, and giving wings to the feet of youth. On the night of November 3rd, after a successful day, the 9th and 23rd Infantry of the Second Division found themselves in column formation on the road leading north to Beaumont, a small town south of Sedan. The way lay open, and they took it. They marched on and on through the night, throwing out the usual advance guard and flank patrols, but otherwise unprotected. By all the rules of war the brigade should have been cut off. But in this twilight-time—this Goetterdaemmerung of the end, conditions were abnormal, and the two regiments marched on through forest country, right through the enemy lines towards the Meuse, for about eight kilometres, capturing machine-gunners asleep at their guns, and rounding up parties of the enemy on the roads, till in the early dawn they reached a farm where German officers were sitting round tables with lights burning—only to spring to their feet in dismay, as the Americans surrounded them. The cold autumn morning—the young bronzed faces emerging from the darkness—the humbled and astonished foe: surely Old and New, Europe and America, were never brought together in a moment more attractive to the story-teller. A touch of romance amid the tragedy and the glory! But how welcome it is!

The full history, however, of the Argonne fighting will probably not be accurately known for some little time to come. No such obscurity hangs over the glorious fighting on the Marne, through the scenes of which I passed both on the railway journey from Paris to Metz, and in motoring from Chalons to Paris on our return. Colonel Frederick Palmer's book[9] gives an account of these operations, which, it seems to me, ought to be universally read in the Allied countries. The crusading courage of whole-hearted youth, the contempt of death and suffering, the splendid and tireless energy which his pages describe, if they touch other English hearts as deeply as they have touched mine, will go a long way towards that spiritual bond between our nations which alone can make real and lasting things out of Leagues and Treaties.

[9] America in France, by Lt.-Col. Frederick Palmer, S.C., U.S.A.

It was on our way from Rheims to Paris after our drive through the Champagne battle-field that we passed rapidly through the places and scenes which Colonel Palmer describes.

As we approached Rheims about midday, a thick white fog rolled suddenly and silently over the chalk uplands that saw General Gouraud's campaign of last September and October. We ran through it, past a turning to Moronvilliers on the left—famous name!—and within a short distance of Nogent l'Abbesse, the fort which did most to wreck Rheims Cathedral, and so down in a dreary semi-darkness into Rheims itself.

Thirty-five years ago I was in Rheims for the first and only time, before this visit. It was in September, not long before the vintage. The town and the country-side were steeped in sunlight, and in the golden riches of Mother Earth. The air indeed, as it shimmered in the heat above the old town, and the hill slopes where the famous vineyards lie, seemed to "drop fatness." Wealth, wine, the body and its pleasures, the cunning handicraft and inherited lore of hundreds of years and many generations seemed to take visible shape in the fine old town, in its vast wine-cellars, and in the old inn where we stayed with its Gargantuan bill of fare, and its abonnes from the town, ruddy, full-fleshed citizens, whose achievements in the way of eating and drinking we watched with amazement. Even the cathedral seemed to me to breathe the richness and gaiety of this central France; the sculptures of the facade with its famous "laughing angel" expressed rather the joy of living, of fair womanhood, of smiling maternity, and childhood, of the prime of youth and the satisfied dignity of age, than those austerer lessons of Christianity which speak from Beauvais, or Chartres or Rouen. But how beautiful it all was, how full, wherever one looked, of that old spell of la douce France! And now! Under the pall of the fog we drove through the silent ruin of the streets, still on their feet, so to speak, as at Verdun, but eyeless, roofless, and dead, scarcely a house habitable, though here and there one saw a few signs of patching up and returning habitation. And in the great square before the Cathedral instead of the old comeliness, the old stir of provincial and commercial life—ruin!—only intensified by a group of motors, come to bring distinguished Sunday visitors from Paris and the Conference, to see as much of it as an hour's wait would enable them to see. There in front of the great portal stood the Prime Minister of England and the Cardinal-Archbishop—heroic Cardinal Lucon, who, under the daily hail of fire, had never left his church or his flock so long as there was a flock in Rheims to shepherd. And above the figure of the Cardinal soared the great West Front, blackened and scarred by fire, the summits of the towers lost in mist, and behind them, the wrecked and roofless church.

The destruction of irreplaceable values, other than human life, caused by the war, is summed up, as far as France is concerned, in this West Front of Rheims; so marred in all its beautiful detail, whether of glass or sculpture, yet still so grand, so instinct still with the pleading powers of the spirit. The "pity of it!" and at the same time, the tenacious undying life of France—all the long past behind her, the unconquerable future before her—these are the ideas one carries away from Rheims, hot in the heart. Above all, for the moment, the pity of it—the horror of this huge outrage spreading from the North Sea to Switzerland, of what the French call so poignantly nos mines—symbolised, once for all, by the brutal fate of this poem in stone, built up by the French generations, which is Rheims Cathedral. And as we passed away from Rheims, through the country roads and the bombarded villages of the Tardenois, another district of old France, which up to May last year was still intact, with all its farms and village and country houses, and is now but little different from Artois and Picardy, I found myself thinking with a passionate anxiety, almost, of the Conference sitting in Paris and of its procedure. "France is right—is right," I caught myself saying for the hundredth time. "Before anything else—justice to her!—protection and healing for her! Justice on the criminal nation, that has ravaged and trampled on her, 'like a wild beast out of the wood,' and healing for wounds and sufferings that no one can realise who has not witnessed for himself the state of her richest provinces. It was she who offered her breast to the first onslaught of the enemy, she who fought for us all when others had still their armies to make, she who has endured most and bled most, heavily as others—Britain, Italy, Belgium, Serbia—have endured. Her claim must come first—and let those in England and America who wish to realise why come and see."

We drove down diagonally through the Marne salient as it was last summer after the German break-through on the Marne, to Dormans and so across the river. In the darkening afternoon we passed over the Montagne de Rheims, and crossed the valley of the Ardre, near the spot where the 19th British Division, in the German attack of last June, put up so splendid a fight in defence of an important position commanding the valley—the Montagne de Bligny—that the General of the Fifth French Army, General de Mitry, under whose orders they were, wrote to General Haig: "They have enabled us to establish a barrier against which the hostile waves have beaten and shattered themselves. This none of the French who witnessed it will ever forget."

For if the Montagne de Bligny had gone, the French position on the Montagne de Rheims, south-west of Rheims, and the Cathedral city itself would have been endangered, no less than by the attack on the north-east of the town, which General Gouraud a month later pinned to earth. And when we reached Dormans, on the south bank, turning west-ward to Chateau Thierry, we were on ground no less vital, where in July the American troops in General Pershing's words wrote "one of the most brilliant pages in our military annals." The story is well known. The Germans were attempting to cross the river in force between Donnans and Chateau Thierry, and then to thrust their way down the valley of the Surmelin to Montmirail and the great main road to Paris, which passes through that town. A single regiment of the 3rd American Division held up the enemy, on the river bank to the east of Mezy, fighting at the same time east and west against German parties who had managed to get a footing at other points on the south side, and finally counter-attacking, throwing two German divisions into complete confusion, and capturing six hundred prisoners. No episode in the war is more likely to ring in the memory of after-times. "In the bend of the Marne at the mouth of the Surmelin," says Colonel Palmer, "not a German was able to land. In all twenty boats full of the enemy were sunk or sent drifting harmlessly down the stream." To the east of Mezy also, four American platoons did incredible things in defence of the Paris-Nancy railway. "They were not going to yield that track alive—that was the simple fact." And their losses were appalling. In the second platoon of the four engaged, all were killed except three who were wounded, and half of the third were down before they had driven the enemy from the embankment. The American graves lie all on the south side of the line—the German on the north. "We actually took over four hundred prisoners between the railroad and the river—the 6th German Grenadier Regiment was annihilated...." And the Germans never reached the Surmelin valley, or that Montmirail road on which they had set their hearts. "The deciding factor," says Colonel Palmer, "was the unflinching courage of our men, and their aggressive spirit." And the action, small as were the numbers engaged, could not have been bettered. "It is a military classic."

Over this hard-fought ground, consecrated by the graves of men who had thus bravely—thus gaily—laid down their lives for a cause of which they had no doubt, we ran on to Chateau Thierry, and that western flank of the Marne salient, where in June, while the Germans were still pressing south, and in July when Foch turned upon his trapped foe, the Americans, most of whom were for the first time in real battle, bore themselves to the astonishment and admiration of all the watching Allies. In June especially, when matters were at their worst. The capture of Bouresches, and Belleau Wood, the capture of Vaux on July 1st, the gallant help which an American machine-gun battalion gave the French in covering the French retreat across the bridge at Chateau Thierry, before it was blown up, and foiling the German attempts to cross, and the German move towards Paris, were perhaps, writes a British military authority, "the most splendid service, from a military standpoint, the Americans rendered to the Allied Cause. It was certainly the first occasion on which they really made themselves felt, and brought home to the Germans the quality of the opposition they were likely to encounter from the American Armies."

As we approached Chateau Thierry, the fog had cleared away and the night was not dark. On our railway journey to Metz a week earlier, we had seen the picturesque old place, with Hill 204 behind it, and the ruins of Vaux to the north-west, in daylight, from the south bank of the river. Now daylight had gone, but as we neared the Marne, the high ground on the curving north bank, with its scattered lights and their twinkling reflections in the water, made still a dimly beautiful setting for the much injured but still living and busy town. We crossed the temporary bridge into the crowded streets, and then as we had come a long way, we were glad to dip for tea and a twenty minutes' break into an inn crowded with Americans. Handsome, friendly fellows! I wished devoutly that it were not so late, and Paris not so far away, that I might have spent a long evening in their company. But we were all too soon on the road again for Meaux and Paris, passing slowly through the ruined streets of Vaux, with Bouresches and Belleau Wood to our right, and behind us the great main road from Soissons to Chateau Thierry, for the command of which in its northern sector, the American divisions under General Mangin, and in its southern portion those commanded by General Degoutte, had fought so stoutly last July. Altogether seven American divisions, or close upon 200,000 men, were concerned in Foch's counter-attack, which began on July 18th; and as General Pershing notes with just pride: "The place of honour in the thrust towards Soissons on the 18th was given to our 1st and 2nd divisions, in company with chosen French divisions. These two divisions captured 7,000 prisoners and over 100 guns."

What one may call the "state entry" of America into the war had thus been made, and Germany had been given full warning of what this new element in the struggle must ultimately mean, were it given time to develop. And during all these weeks of June and July, British and American ships, carrying American soldiers, came in a never-ending succession across the Atlantic. An American Army of 5,000,000 men was in contemplation, and, "Why," said the President at Baltimore in April, "limit it to 5,000,000?" While every day the British Navy kept its grim hold on the internal life of Germany, and every day was bringing the refreshed and reorganised British Army, now at the height of its striking power, nearer to the opening on August 8th of that mighty and continuous advance which ended the war.



CHAPTER VIII

"FEATURES OF THE WAR"

April 15th.

In these April days Sir Douglas Haig's latest Despatch, dated the 21st March, 1919—the first anniversary of those black days of last year!—has just been published in all the leading English newspapers. It is divided into three parts: "The Advance into Germany," "Features of the War," and "My Thanks to Commanders and Staffs." It is on the second part in particular that public attention has eagerly fastened. Nothing could well be more interesting or more important. For it contains the considered judgment of the British Commander-in-Chief on the war as a whole, so far, at least, as Great Britain is concerned. The strong and reticent man who is responsible for it broke through the limitations of official expression on two occasions only during the war: in the spring of 1917, in that famous and much criticised interview which he gave to certain French journalists, an incident, by the way, on which this Despatch throws a good deal of light; and in the impassioned Order of last April, when, like Joffre on the Marne, he told his country: that England had her back to the wall.

But here, for the first time, the mind on which for three and a half years depended the military fortunes, and therewith the future destiny of the British Empire, reveals itself with much fullness and freedom, so far as the moment permits. The student of the war cannot read these paragraphs too closely, and we may be sure that every paragraph in them will be a text for comment and illustration in the history schools of the future. The Despatch, moreover, is full of new information on points of detail, and gives figures and statistics which have never yet been made public. There are not, however, many persons outside the Armies who will give themselves to the close study of a long military despatch. Let me try, then, before I wind up these letters of mine, to bring out very shortly both some of the fresh points of view and the new detail which make the Despatch so interesting. It will be seen, I think, that the general account given in my preceding letters of British conclusions on the war, when tested by the Despatch, may still hold its own.

In the first place, the Field Marshal dwells in words of which the subdued bitterness is unmistakable, on Great Britain's unpreparedness for the war. "We were deficient in both trained men and military material, and, what is more important, had no machinery ready by which either men or material could be produced in anything like the necessary quantities." It took us, therefore, "two and a half years to reach the high-water mark of our infantry strength," and by that time we had lost thousands of lives, which, had we been better prepared, need never have been lost.

And, moreover, our unpreparedness, and the fact that we were not able to take a full share in the war till the summer of 1916, terribly wasted the man-power of France. "The excessive burden," says Marshal Haig, "thrown upon the gallant Army of France during that period caused them losses the effect of which has been felt all through the war and directly influenced its length." Meanwhile, what might have been "the effect of British intervention on a larger scale, in the earlier stages of the war, is shown by what was actually achieved by our original Expeditionary Force."

Who was responsible for this unpreparedness?

Sir Douglas Haig does not raise the question. But those of us who remember the political history of the years from 1906 to 1914 can hardly be in doubt as to the answer. It was the Radical and anti-militarist group of the Liberal party then in power, who every year fought the Naval and Military Estimates—especially the latter—point by point, and stubbornly hampered the most necessary military provision, on whom, little as they intended or foresaw it, a tragic responsibility for the prolongation of the war, and the prodigal loss of life it involved, must always rest. Lord Haldane, indeed during his years of office as the War Minister of the Liberal Government, made a gallant fight for the Army. To him we owe the Expeditionary Force, the Territorials, the organisation of the General Staff, the Officers' Training Corps; and without his reforms our case would have been black indeed when the storm broke. No one has repelled more indignantly the common Tory charges against Lord Haldane than Sir Douglas Haig himself. But, during his years at the War Office Lord Haldane was fighting against heavy odds, attacked on the one hand by the upholders of Lord Roberts's scheme, in which neither he nor the General Staff believed, and under perpetual sniping on the other from the extreme section of his own party. The marvel is that he was able to do what he did!

Granting, however, the unpreparedness of England, what a wonderful story it is on which Sir Douglas Haig looks back! First, the necessary opening stage of this or any war—i.e., a preliminary phase of manoeuvring for position, on both sides, which came to an end with "the formation of continuous trench lines from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier." Then, when British military power had developed, followed "the period of real struggle," in which the main forces of the two belligerent Armies were pitted against each other in close and costly combat—i.e., "the wearing-down battle" which must go on in this war, as in all wars where large and equal forces are engaged, till one or the other combatant begins to weaken. And, finally, the last stage, when the weakening combatant stakes "on a supreme effort what reserves remain to him," and must abide by the issue. Germany staked her last reserves in the "great sortie" of her beleaguered Armies, which lasted from April to July of 1918. She lost the game, and the end, which was inevitable, followed quickly.

For the British Commander-in-Chief insists that we must look upon the war as a whole. In the earlier part of the wearing-down battle which occupied its central years, we did what we could till our new armies were ready, and without us France could not have held out. Without the British Navy, in particular, the war must have collapsed in a month. But the main brunt of the struggle on land had to be borne—and was superbly borne—by France up to the summer of 1916, when we entered on our full strength. Thenceforward the chief strain lay on the constantly developing Armies of Great Britain. From July, 1916, to the Armistice, Sir Douglas Haig bids us conceive the long succession of battles fought by the Allies in France as "one great and continuous engagement." "Violent crises of fighting" within such a conflict may appear individually as "indecisive battles." But the issue is all the time being slowly and inexorably decided. And as soon as the climax is reached, and the weakening of one side or the other begins, nothing but the entry of some new and unexpected factor can avert the inevitable end. When Russia broke down in 1917, it looked for a time as though such a new factor had appeared. It prolonged the war, and gave Germany a fresh lease of fighting strength, but it was not sufficient to secure victory. She did her utmost with it in 1918, and when she failed, the older factors that had been at work, through all the deadly progress of the preceding years of the war, were seen at last for the avengers, irresistible and final, that they truly were. "The end of the war," says the Commander-in-Chief, "was neither sudden, nor should it have been unexpected." The rapid collapse of Germany's military powers in the latter half of 1918 was the logical outcome of the fighting of the previous two years. Attrition and blockade are the two words that explain the final victory. As to the cost of that victory, the incredible heart-rending cost, Sir Douglas Haig maintains that, given the vast range of the struggle, and the vital issues on which it turned—given also the unpreparedness of England, and the breakdown of Russia, the casualties of the war could not have been less. The British casualties in all theatres of war are given as 3,000,000—2,500,000 on the Western front; the French at 4,800,000; the Italians, including killed and wounded only, 1,400,000; a total of nine million, two hundred thousand. On the enemy side, the Field Marshal gives the German and Austro-Hungarian losses at approximately eleven millions. And to these have to be added the Russian casualties before 1917, a figure running into millions; the Serbian, Roumanian, and Turkish losses, and, lastly, the American.

Some seven million young men at least have perished from this pleasant earth, which is now again renewing its spring life in beauty and joy, and millions of others will bear the physical marks of the struggle to their graves. Is there anything to console us for such a spectacle? The reply of the British Commander-in-Chief is that "the issues involved in this stupendous struggle were far greater than those concerned in any other war in recent history. Our existence as an Empire, and civilisation itself as it is understood by the free Western nations was at stake. Men fought as they had never fought before."

"Go, stranger, and tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie here, obedient to their will." So the Greek epitaph that all men know. In the same spirit, for country and home, for freedom and honour—at the Will of that Power by whom "the most ancient heavens are fresh and strong"—these fighters of our day laid down their ardent and obedient lives. There is but one way in which we can truly honour them. A better world, as their eternal memorial:—shame on us if we cannot build it!

May 20th.

Since the preceding paragraphs were written, the French General Staff has published an illuminating analysis of those military conditions in the concluding months of the war which compelled the German Command and the German Government to sue for an Armistice. The German proclamation, when the conclusion of the Armistice allowed those armies to retreat, proclaimed them "unconquered." Our own Commander-in-Chief declares, it will be remembered, on the other hand, that the fighting along the front of the British Armies from November 1st to November 11th had "forced on the enemy a disorderly retreat. Thereafter he was neither capable of accepting nor refusing battle. The utter confusion of his troops, the state of his railways, congested with abandoned trains, the capture of huge quantities of rolling-stock and material—all showed that our attack had been decisive.... The strategic plan of the Allies had been realised with a completeness rarely seen in war. When the Armistice was signed, his defensive powers had already been definitely destroyed. A continuance of hostilities could only have meant disaster to the German Armies, and the armed invasion of Germany."

To this statement from the leader of those armies to whom it fell to strike the last decisive blows in the struggle may now be added the testimony of the admirably served Intelligence Department of the French General Staff, as to the precise condition of the German Armies before the Armistice. "The strategic plan of the Allies," of which Sir Douglas Haig speaks, was the supreme business of Marshal Foch, and the facts and figures now given show how closely the great Frenchman was informed and how "completely," to use Marshal Haig's word, his plans were carried out. On the 3rd of October Hindenburg had written to Prince Max of Baden, that "as a result ... of our complete inability to fill up the gaps caused by the very heavy losses inflicted on us during the recent battles, no hope is left ... of forcing the enemy to make peace." How true this was is made plain by the details just published. On September 25th—that is to say, the day before the British attack on the Hindenburg line, and the French and American attacks east and west of the Argonne—the Intelligence Department of the French General Staff reported to Marshal Foch that since July 15th, in the Marne salient, at St. Mihiel, and in the British battles of Amiens, Bapaume, and the Scarpe, the enemy had engaged 163 divisions. His reserves were reduced to 68 divisions—as against 81 in July—and of these only 21 were fresh troops. The German line had been shortened by 125 miles, but so weakened were the German Armies, that the same number of divisions had to be kept in the line as before the shortening—each division representing only some three-quarters of its former strength, and 16 divisions having been broken up to fill the ranks in those that remained.

Following immediately on this report came the three converging attacks of the Allies. On October 9th the German Army, under British pressure, abandoned the whole Hindenburg position, and entered upon a general retreat from the North Sea to the Meuse. At that moment 44 of the German divisions in line were not to be depended on for further serious fighting, and there were only 22 divisions available to replace them, of which 15 were of inferior quality, holding "quiet" sectors. On October 11th the French Intelligence Bureau reported that "it is impossible for the enemy, with the forces that he has at present in line, to stop and face any considerable attack for an appreciable time."

On October 4th, the day after Hindenburg's letter to Prince Max, the German Chancellor cabled to President Wilson, asking for an Armistice. Already, on September 28th, in the very midst of the British attack on the Hindenburg line, and on the morrow of General Gouraud's and General Pershing's first advances in Champagne and the Argonne, the German Command had warned the Chancellor that this step must be taken, and from October 9th onward there was no more heart left in the German Armies. The "prisoners" line in the chart,[10] brought daily up to date at the Headquarters of the British Army, shows what the demoralisation had become in the German ranks. After the British battle of the Sambre (November 4th) there were practically no reserves left, and Marshal Foch had plans in store which, had there been any further resistance, must have led to the wholesale capitulation of all that was left of the German Armies.

[10] See reproduction.

* * * * *

So in ignominy and shame the German onslaught on the liberties of Europe came—militarily—to its bitter end. The long-drawn agony of four and a half years was over, and the "wearing-out battle" had done its work. Now, six months later, we are in the midst of that stern Epilogue—in which a leagued Europe and America are dictating to Germany the penalties by which alone she may purge her desperate offence. A glance at the conditions of Peace published to the world on May 11th, the anniversary of the-sinking of the Lusitania, will form the natural conclusion to this imperfect survey of the last and most glorious stage in "England's Effort." But for the moment, let me return to the "Features of the War," and Marshal Haig's comments on them in his last Despatch. Many, many books will be written about them in the future! All I can do here is to single out a few of those that seem to be most commonly in the minds of those who are still thinking about the war.

* * * * *

Take, first, the value of cavalry in modern battle. In his April Despatch, Sir Douglas Haig enters on a strong defence of it—the plea of a great cavalry leader. Since the stabilisation of the trench system in the West, it has been, as we can all remember, a commonplace of the newspapers and of private conversation that cavalry were played out—a mere useless or ornamental excrescence on armies that, by the help of tanks and aeroplanes, could now excellently do without them. "Not at all," replies Sir Douglas Haig. If the German Command had had at their disposal last March and April "even two or three well-trained cavalry divisions, a wedge might have been driven between the French and British armies." In any case, the difficulties of our task would have been greatly increased. On the other hand, our cavalry were enormously useful to us in the same battle. "So great indeed became the need for mounted men that certain units which had been dismounted were hurriedly provided with horses and did splendid service. Frequently when it was impossible to move forward other troops in time our mounted troops were able to fill gaps in our line and restore the situation." During the long trench battle of the middle years "the absence of room for manoeuvre made the importance of cavalry less apparent." But in the last stage of the struggle, when the Germans "were falling back in disorganised masses," the moral effect of British cavalry pressing on the heels of the enemy was "overwhelming," and had not the Armistice stopped the cavalry advance, it would have turned the enemy's disorganised retreat "into a rout."

This is strong testimony, and will probably be stoutly fought by the eager advocates of "mechanical contrivances." But Sir Douglas Haig stands to it that no form of mechanical contrivance can ever either make the cavalryman useless, or the infantryman, who is "the backbone of defence and the spearhead of attack," less important. He admits, indeed, fully that machine guns, tanks, aeroplanes, and motor transport "have given a greater driving power to war," and that the country which possesses most of such things has an advantage over its opponents. But he insists that their only "real function" is to assist the infantry to get to grips with their opponents, and that of themselves "they cannot possibly obtain a decision." To imagine that tanks and aeroplanes can ever take the place of infantry and cavalry is to do these marvellous tools themselves a disservice by expecting of them more than they can perform. "Only by the rifle and bayonet of the infantry can the decisive victory be won." For, as the Commander-in-Chief lays down no less strongly than this great French colleague, Marshal Foch, "this war has given no new principles." But it has greatly complicated the application of the old. Every new invention makes the problem of co-operation—of interaction between the different armies and services—more difficult and more imperative.

* * * * *

As to the artillery history of the war, the Field Marshal gives the most amazing figures. When in 1916, at the suggestion of Mr. Roosevelt, and by the wish of our Government, I went through some of our leading munition districts, with a view to reporting what was being done in them to England's friends in America, the great development which started from the Munitions Act of 1915 was still only in its earlier stages. Everywhere the Government factories were rising with what seemed incredible rapidity, and the older works were doubling and trebling their output. But the output was still far behind the need. By the date of the Somme Battle, indeed—in the autumn, that is, of the same year—it had risen enormously. I may quote my own words in England's Effort (October, 1916): "The total amount of heavy guns and ammunition manufactured in Great Britain in the first ten months of the war would not have kept the British bombardment on the Somme going for a single day."

And now?

On that first day of the Somme Battle, July, 1916, says the Despatch, "13,000 tons of ammunition were fired by us on the Western front. On the 31st of July, 1917, in the Third Battle of Ypres, the British Armies used 23,000 tons of ammunition." Last year, from August to November, 700,000 tons of ammunition were expended by the British Armies on the Western front. On the days of most active fighting 20,000 tons a day was a common ration. The supply never failed. In the three months' offensive of last autumn all the Army Commanders had to think of in the matter of artillery and ammunition was transport and distribution. The amount was unlimited. While in the matter of guns, the British Army, which on August 4th, 1914, possessed 486 pieces of different calibres, all told, at the tune of the Armistice was employing 6,437 guns and howitzers of all kinds, including the heaviest monsters of the battle-field.

And with this vast increase in material had gone perpetual advance in organisation. Artillery commanders were introduced into all armies and corps, with staffs acting under them. Hence a greater concentration of brain and energy on the special artillery problems—very soon justified by results. Science and experience had full play, and the continuous artillery battle begun on the Somme ended, as it deserved to end, "in the defeat of the enemy's guns." To that defeat new inventions—or the marvellous development of old ones—were perpetually tending. Take sound-ranging for instance, which, with flash-spotting and air photography, has enabled the gunner more and more certainly to locate his enemy's gun while concealing the position of his own. For "the object of a gun or howitzer is to throw a projectile to some spot the position of which is known." The older way of knowing was by registration—throwing round after round, and by the help of aeroplane or other observation of the results, getting nearer and nearer to the target till the range was exactly found. By this method, not only is the enemy warned, but your own position is revealed. The newer method aims at surprise—the supreme aim of modern war.

"The principle of the location of guns by sound," writes an artillery officer, "is simple enough. Suppose there are two observers in the British lines, one at each end of a long line. Bisect this base, and from the middle point draw a line at right angles to the base and towards the German lines. Now, if a hostile gun fires from a position on this line, the sound will reach both observers simultaneously. If the gun fires from a position to the right of the line, the sound will reach the right-hand observer first, and vice versa. Then, by measuring exactly the time-interval between the arrival of the sound at each observation post, the bearing to the gun can be calculated."

"Until quite recently the Germans used four human observers, who timed the sound intervals with stop watches. The British used six microphones of a special type, connected electrically with a photographic-recording apparatus. Instead of stop watches, therefore, we used a timing device capable of recording the most minute time-intervals with perfect precision. The whole system was immeasurably superior to the German, and at least twenty times as accurate, for the British system was absolutely automatic. It recorded the arrival of the sound at the various microphones instantaneously on a permanent record; while the German system, apart from its crude method of measuring time, was subject to the combined errors of four human 'microphones.' The British system requires only one forward observer, placed well ahead of the base, and all he has to do is to press a button and start the apparatus before the sound reaches the microphones.

"The photographic record is ready for the computer in from six to ten seconds, and the gun position can be found and plotted in three or four minutes.

"Sound ranging also can be used for ranging our own guns with great accuracy. When a record has been obtained of a hostile gun, all that need be done is to record the burst of our own shell and give corrections to our battery until the record of our shell-burst is identical with that of the hostile gun. The shell must then be on the target.

"The system works equally well by day or by night, in rain or in fog. Its one enemy is a wind which blows towards the hostile gun and prevents the sound reaching the recording apparatus. It can detect a gun as easily if it is in a wood or in a building as if it were on a hill-top.

"Simple as it appears, however, it is not so easy as one might think to make a practical ally of sound ranging. We have succeeded. The Germans failed. Towards the end of the war at least ninety per cent, of the German artillery was marked down accurately by these means; and the staff employed on sound-ranging and flash-spotting (the last a kindred method depending on a mixture of observation and mathematics) had grown from four in 1914 to four thousand five hundred in 1918.

"Casualties have been heavy, and the work arduous. But those responsible for it have, at any rate, 'done their bit.'"

This is just one instance, such as we ignorant at home can more or less follow, of that concentration of British wit and British perseverance on the terrible business of war which carried us to our goal. Germany prided herself, above all, on "scientific war." But the nation she despised as slow-witted and effete has met her again and again on her own boasted ground, and, brain for brain, has won.

With the ever-growing importance of artillery has gone, of course, a constant increase in artillery personnel, and in the proportion of gunners to infantry. The Third Battle of Ypres in the autumn of 1917 was "one of intense struggle for artillery supremacy," says the Field Marshal. Germany had put out all her strength in guns, and was determined to beat down the British artillery. The British Command met the attack and defeated it, in a long-drawn battle, in which, naturally, the proportion of artillery personnel to infantry was exceptionally high—at one time eighty-five per cent. Last spring, for a short time, owing to the transference of batteries from the Russian front, the enemy command succeeded in establishing "a definite local artillery superiority." But it was soon over. Before the breakdown of the March offensive "our guns had regained the upper hand," and in the later battles of the year the German artillery was finally mastered.

But immense as was the growth of the artillery factor, the ultimate problem was the old problem of co-operation and combination of all factors. "Deep study of work other than one's own," "understanding of the other man's job"—for the highest success in any branch of the Army, these were and are indispensable. Only so can the vast machine work satisfactorily; only so can the human intelligence embodied in it come to its own.

To the two subsidiary services most in the public eye—tanks and aeroplanes—I will return presently. As to the Signal Service, the "nervous system" of the Army, on which "co-operation and combination" depend, it has grown, says the Field Marshal, "almost out of recognition." At the outbreak of war it consisted of 2,400 officers and men; by the end of the war it had risen to 42,000. Cables, telegrams, wireless, carrier-pigeons and dog messengers—every kind of device was used for keeping up the communications, which mean everything in battle. The signal officer and his men creeping out over No Man's Land to mend a wire, or lay down a new one, in the very heart of the fighting, have carried the lives of thousands in their hands, and have risked their own without a thought. Sir Douglas Haig, from his Headquarters, spoke not only to every unit in the British Army, but to the Headquarters of our Allies—to London, Paris, and Marseilles. An Army Headquarters was prepared to deal with 10,000 telegrams and 5,000 letters in twenty-four hours; and wherever an army went, its cables and telephones went with it. As many as 6,500 miles of field cable have been issued in a single week, and the weekly average over the whole of 1918 was 3,000.

As to the Rearward and Transport Services, seeing that the Army was really the nation, with the best of British intelligence everywhere at its command, it is not surprising perhaps that a business people, under the pressure of a vital struggle, obtained so brilliant a success. In 1916, I saw something of the great business departments of the Army—the Army Service, Army Ordnance, and Motor Transport depots at Havre and Rouen. The sight was to me a bewildering illustration of what English "muddling" could do when put to the test. On my return to London, Dr. Page, the late American Ambassador, who during the years when America was still neutral had managed, notwithstanding, to win all our hearts, gave me an account of the experience of certain American officers in the same British bases, and the impression made on them. "They came here afterwards on their way home," he said—I well remember his phrase, "with the eyes starting out of their heads, and with reports that will transform all our similar work at home." So that we may perhaps trace some at least of those large and admirable conceptions of Base needs and Base management, with which the American Army prepared its way in France, to these early American visits and reports, as well as to the native American genius for organisation and the generosity of American finance.

But if the spectacle of "the back of the Army" was a wonderful one in 1916, it became doubly wonderful before the end of the war. The feeding strength of our forces in France rose to a total approaching 2,700,000 men. The Commander-in-Chief tries to make the British public understand something of what this figure means. Transport and shipping were, of course, the foundation of everything. While the British Fleet kept the seas and fought the submarine, the Directorate of Docks handled the ports, and the Directorate of Roads, with the Directorates of Railway Traffic, Construction and Light Railways, dealt with the land transport. During the years of war we landed ten and a half millions of persons in France, and last year the weekly tonnage arriving at French ports exceeded 175,000 tons. Meanwhile four thousand five hundred miles of road were made or kept up by the Directorate of Roads. Only they who have seen with their own eyes—or felt in their own bones!—what a wrecked road, or a road worn to pieces by motor lorries, is really like, can appreciate what this means. And during 1918 alone, the Directorate of Railway Traffic built or repaired 2,340 miles of broad-gauge and 1,348 miles of narrow-gauge railway. Everywhere, indeed, on the deserted battle-fields you come across these deserted light railways by which men and guns were fed. May one not hope that they may still be of use in the reconstruction of French towns and the revival of French agriculture?

As to the feeding and cooking and washing of the armies, the story is no less wonderful, and I remember as I read the great camp laundry at Etaples that I went through in 1917, with its busy throng of Frenchwomen at work and its 30,000 items a day. Twenty-five thousand cooks have been trained in the cookery schools of the Army, while a jealous watch has been kept on all waste and by-products under an Inspectorate of Economies. As to the care of the horses, in health or in sickness, the British Remount and Veterinary Service has been famed throughout Europe for efficiency and humanity.

Of the vast hospital service, what can one say that has not been said a thousand tunes already? Between the spring of 1916, when I first saw the fighting front, and November, 1918, the hospital accommodation in France rose from 44,000 to 175,000 persons. That is to say, we kept our wounded in France during the height of the submarine campaign, both to protect them from the chance of further suffering, and to economise our dwindling tonnage, and fresh hospitals had to be built for them. Of the doctors and nurses, the stretcher-bearers and orderlies, whose brave and sacred work it was to gather the wounded from the battle-line, and to bring to bear upon the suffering and martyrdom of war all that human skill and human tenderness could devise, Sir Douglas Haig has said many true and eloquent things in the course of his despatches. He sums them all up in his last despatch in the plain words: "In spite of the numbers dealt with, there has been no war in which the resources of science have been utilised so generously and successfully for the quick evacuation and careful tending of the sick and wounded, or for the prevention of disease."

Most true—and yet? Do not let us deceive ourselves! The utmost energy, the tenderest devotion, the noblest skill, can go but a certain way when measured against the sum total of human suffering caused by war. The ablest of doctors and nurses are the first to admit it. Those of us whose wounded brothers and sons reached in safety the haven of hospital comfort and skilled nursing, and were thereby brought back to life, are, thank Heaven, the fortunate many. But there are the few for whose dear ones all that wonderful hospital and nursing science was of no avail. I think of a gallant boy lying out all night with a broken thigh in a shell-hole amid the mud and under the rain of Flanders. Kind hands come with the morning and carry him to the advanced dressing station. There is still hope. But miles of mud and broken ground lie between him and the nearest hospital. Immediate warmth and rest and nursing might have saved him. But they are unattainable. Brave men carry the boy tenderly, carefully, the three miles to the casualty clearing station. The strain on the flickering life is just too much, and in the first night of hospital, when every care is round it, the young life slips away—lost by so little—by no fault!

Is there any consolation? One only—the boy's own spirit. A comrade remembers one of his last sayings—a simple casual word: "I don't expect to come through—but—it's worth it."

There one reaches the bed-rock of it all—the conviction of a just cause. What would it avail us—this pride of victory, of organisation, of science, to which these great despatches of our great Commander-in-Chief bear witness, without that spiritual certainty behind it all—the firm faith that England was fighting for the right, and, God helping her, "could do no other."



CHAPTER IX

TANKS AND AEROPLANES

THE STAFF WORK OF THE WAR

I have quoted in the preceding chapter the warning words of Sir Douglas Haig on the subject of "mechanical appliances." The gist of them is that mechanical appliances can never replace men, and that the history of tanks in the war shows that, useful as they have been, their value depends always upon combination with both infantry and artillery. So far from their doing away with artillery, the Commander-in-Chief points out that the Battle of Amiens, August 8th, in which the greatest force of tanks was used, and in which they were most brilliantly successful, was "an action in which more artillery ammunition was expended than in any action of similar dimensions in the whole war."

The tank enthusiasts will clearly not be quite satisfied with so measured a judgment! They point to the marked effect of the tanks on the strategy of the last three months of the war, to the extraordinary increase in the elements of mobility and surprise which their use made possible, to the effect of them also on German opinion and morale, and they believe that in any future war—if war there be!—they are certain to play, not a subsidiary, but a commanding part.

One of the most distinguished officers of the Tank Corps, who was wounded and decorated before he joined the corps, was severely wounded twice while he belonged to the corps, and was an eye-witness of the incidents he describes, allows me to print the following letter:

"You ask me for a short account of what tanks have done in the war. In doing so, you set me a difficult problem! For three years I have thought of practically nothing else but tanks, so that I find it very difficult to deal with the subject briefly. However, I will try.

"The basic idea and purpose of tanks is a very simple one: to save infantry casualties. A new tank can be built in a few months; a new soldier cannot be produced under eighteen years. This idea—of the use of mechanical means to save casualties—undoubtedly had much to do with the production in the Tank Corps, a new unit and without traditions, of the very high esprit de corps it has always shown, and without which it could not have developed successfully.

"Tanks were first used by the British on the 15th September, 1916, in the Battle of the Ancre. They had, however, been designed to meet the conditions which existed in the preceding year, before the tremendous artillery bombardments of the middle stages of the war reduced the ground to a series of shell-holes and craters, which were so closely continuous over a large area of ground that they could not possibly be avoided. Compared with the latest type of tank, our first effort—known as Mark I.—may appear crude; but much genius had been expended upon it, and it is worth noting that both the French and German tanks, produced long after this tank, were much inferior to it.

"The Ypres salient, let me begin by saying, was never favourable to the employment of tanks. In the Third Battle of Ypres (31st July to November, 1917), which I personally believe to have been the hardest battle of the whole war, the tanks were unable to cope with the wet and shelled ground."

Nevertheless, towards the end of the Ypres battle the tank attack in the first Battle of Cambrai was being planned, and there, at last, the enthusiasts of the Tank Corps had the conditions for which they had been long hoping—a good ground and a surprise attack.

"It is important to remember, the letter continues, that the Hindenburg line at that time presented an insoluble problem. The sea of wire which protected its well-developed trenches and machine-gun positions was placed almost throughout on the reverse slope of the hills or rising ground of which the line took advantage. The artillery observer could hardly get a view of the wire at all; beside which, it was so deep it would have taken a month to cut it by artillery fire.

"The tank provided the solution—the only solution. The tank, by crushing down the wire—in a few minutes—was able to do what there seemed no other way of doing. And the tank success at Cambrai was not a mere flash in the pan. To the end of the war the Hindenburg line, or any other line organised in the same way, was entirely at the mercy of the tanks.

"The tanks, however, did not make their full weight felt until August, 1918. They had become a very important factor before that, and had saved thousands of lives; but from the beginning of the counter-offensive of last year they were a dominating feature of the war. Ludendorff had already recognised their importance in July, after the French use of them in the Battle of Soissons, when he wrote to his Army Commanders that 'the utmost attention must be paid to combating tanks. Our earlier successes against tanks led to a certain contempt for this weapon of warfare. We must now reckon with more dangerous tanks.'"

The "earlier successes" mentioned were those of the Third Battle of Ypres. In the Ypres salient, however, the real anti-tank defence was the mud, and the general conclusions which the German Higher Command drew from the derelict tanks they captured during the fighting of October, 1917, were entirely misleading, as they soon discovered to their cost, a few weeks later, in the First Battle of Cambrai. They showed, indeed, throughout a curious lack of intelligence and foresight with regard to the new weapon, both as to its possibilities and as to the means of fighting it. They were at first entirely surprised by their appearance in the field; then they despised them; and it was not till July and August, 1918, at the beginning of the last great Allied offensive—when it will be remembered that Sir Henry Rawlinson had 400 tanks under his command—that the Germans awoke—too late—to the full importance of the new arm.

Thenceforward "the enemy was overcome by a great fear of the Allied tanks, and in some cases even over-estimated their effect." But it was now too late to put up an adequate defence against "the more dangerous tanks," which were already available in large numbers on the Allied side. It seems incredible, but it is true, that the Germans never possessed at any time more than fifteen tanks of their own, plus some twenty-five captured and repaired British tanks; and the only action in which they employed them with any considerable success was at the capture of Villers Bretonneux, April 24th, 1918 (the success which was so quickly turned into defeat by the Australians). After last July, however, the German panic with regard to them grew rapidly, and on the 15th of August we find it stated that everything possible must be done to give the artillery "freedom of action in its main role, viz., the engagement of tanks." "Its main role!" The phrase shows that under the pressure of the tanks, the two chief pillars and axioms of the former German defence system—"protective barrages" and "immediate counter-attack"—were giving way, in the case at least of tank attacks, with, of course, the natural result of confusion and weakness. After the Battle of Amiens (August 8th) the German Command issued an explanation of the defeat, signed by Ludendorff. Chief among the reasons given appears: "The fact that the troops were surprised by the massed attack of tanks, and lost their heads when the tanks suddenly appeared behind them, having broken through under cover of fog and smoke." The Crown Prince's group of armies reports on the same battle: "That during the present fighting large numbers of tanks broke through on narrow fronts, and, pushing straight forward, rapidly attacked battery positions and the headquarters of divisions. In many cases no defence could be made in time against the tanks, which attacked them from all sides."

And the peremptory order follows:

"Messages concerning tanks will have priority over all other messages or calls whatsoever."

Naturally the German Army and the German public had by this time begun to ask why the German Command was not itself better equipped with tanks before the opening of the Allied offensive. The answer seems to be, first of all, that they were originally thought little of, as "a British idea." "The use of 300 British tanks at Cambrai," says a German document, "was a 'battle of material.' The German Higher Command decided from the very outset not to fight a 'battle of material.'" They preferred instead their habitual policy of "massed attack"—using thereby in the fighting line a number of inferior men, "classified as fit for garrison or labour duties," but who, if they "can carry a rifle, must fight." The German Command were, therefore, "not in a position to find the labour for the construction of new and additional material such as tanks." For the initial arrogance, however, which despised the tanks, and for the system which had prevented him from building them in time, when their importance was realised, the enemy was soon plunged in bitter but unavailing regrets. All he could do was to throw the blame of failure on the Allies' new weapon, and to issue despairing appeals to his own troops. The Allies were sometimes stated to have captured such and such a place "by the use of masses of tanks," when, as a matter of fact, very few tanks had been used. And this convenient excuse, as it appeared in the official communiques, began soon to have some strange and disastrous results. The German regimental officer began to think that as soon as tanks appeared, it was a sufficient reason for the loss of a position. For the German Army last year might be divided into three categories: "A small number of stout-hearted men (chiefly machine-gunners), who could be depended on to fight to the last; men who did not intend to fight, and did intend to put up their hands on the first occasion; and, thirdly, the 'great middle class,' who were prepared to do their duty, and had a sense of discipline, but who could not be classed as heroes.... It was they who came to consider that when tanks arrived, 'there was nothing to be done.'"

Moreover, the failure of the German Higher Command to produce tanks themselves to fight those of the Allies had a very serious effect, not only on the faith of the troops in their generals, but also on the morale of the public at home. German war correspondents and members of the Reichstag began to ask indignant questions, and the German War Office hurriedly defended itself in the Reichstag. As late as October 23rd General Scheuch, the German War Minister, declared: "We have been actively engaged for a long period in producing this weapon (which is recognised as important) in adequate numbers." It seems to be true that efforts were then being made, but not true that these efforts were of long standing. "Altogether 'slowness' was the keynote throughout of the German attitude towards the tank idea." He neither appreciated their true use nor the best means of fighting them; and even when we presented him with derelict tanks, as was soon the case on the Ancre in 1916, he failed to diagnose the creature accurately.

"It is natural, I think," my correspondent continues, "that the British should pride themselves on being the introducers and leading exponents of this weapon. What the future will bring no one knows; but if war is to persist, there can be no doubt that mechanical means in general, and tanks in particular, must develop more and more. If any civilised state is compelled to use force, it will, if really civilised, strive to sacrifice its wealth and its material as far as possible, rather than its human lives.

"As to incidents, you asked me for some recollections of those which had particularly impressed themselves upon me. It is hard to choose. The Third Battle of Ypres, to which I have referred, brought out many wonderful deeds of deliberate self-sacrifice. Take the following:

"In one case a section of three tanks were the only ones available to support an infantry attack. The ground over which they had to proceed was in a terrible state, and their chances of success were small. Their only chance of success, in fact, depended on their finding in the early dawn, and in the fog of battle, one single crossing over the marshy stream. The enemy front line was actually in front of this stream. The officer commanding the section considered that the only way of finding the route was on foot. With the knowledge that this meant certain death, he led his section of tanks through the bad ground under very heavy fire. He found the bridge safely, and was killed as he reached it. The tanks went on and succeeded in their mission, and many infantry lives were saved by this act of sacrifice."

Then take the case of the incident of General Elles at the First Battle of Cambrai. As my correspondent of the Tank Corps, who was in the battle, says: "In modern warfare the place of the General Commanding is almost invariably in the rear of his troops, in a position where communications are good, and where he can employ his reserves at the right moment. At this battle all the available Tanks (about four hundred) were being used. There were no reserves. So the General Commanding led the attack, flying the Tank Corps flag. He came safely through the attack, which undoubtedly owed some measure of its success to the inspiration which this act gave to the troops."

A quiet account!—given by a man who was certainly not very far away from his General in the affair. Let me supplement it a little by the story of Mr. Philip Gibbs, who seems to have seen as much as any correspondent might, of this wonderful "show" of the Tanks.

"For strange, unusual drama, far beyond the most fantastic imagination, this attack on the Hindenburg line before Cambrai has never been approached on the Western Front; and the first act began when the Tanks moved forward, before the dawn, towards the long wide belts of wire which they had to destroy before the rest could follow. These squadrons of Tanks were led into action by the General Commanding their corps, who carried his flag on their own Tank—a most gallant gentleman, full of enthusiasm for his monsters and their brave crews, and determined that this day would be theirs. They moved forward in small groups, several hundreds of them, rolled down the Germans' wire and trampled down its lines, and then crossed the deep gulf of the Hindenburg main line, pitching nose downward as they drew their long bodies over the parapets, and rearing themselves again with forward reach of body, and heaving themselves on to the German parados beyond.... The German troops, out of the gloom of the dawn, saw these grey inhuman creatures bearing down upon them, crushing down their wire, crossing their impregnable lines, firing fiercely from their flanks and sweeping the trenches with machine-gun bullets." A captured German officer thought "he had gone mad," as he watched the Tanks, while his men ran about in terror, trying to avoid the bursts of fire, and crying out in surrender. "What could we do?"

Meanwhile, our own men, English, Irish, and Scottish troops, went behind the Tanks, "laughing and cheering when they saw them get at the German wire and eat it up, and then head for the Hindenburg line, and cross it as though it were but a narrow ditch."

And yet, after this experience, the Germans still delayed to make Tanks! No doubt they argued that, after all, the Cambrai attack, in spite of the Tanks, had ended in a check for the British, and in the loss of much of the ground which had been gained by the surprise attack of the "grey monsters." Meanwhile, the Russian front was rapidly breaking down, and in their exultant anticipation of the fresh forces they would soon be drawing from it to throw against the British Armies, the standing contempt of the German Command for "British ideas" and a "battle of material" won the day.

The German General Staff, therefore, maintained its refusal to spare labour and material to make Tanks, and the refusal must have seemed to them fully justified by the initial success of their March offensive. Tanks played practically no part in the fighting withdrawal of the British Armies in March and April, 1918. But all this time Tank development was going on; and the believers in Tanks were working away at the improvement of the types, convinced now, as ever, that their day would come. It dawned with the Australian attack at Villers-Bretonneux on April 24th, when the fortunes of battle were already changing; it rose higher on July 4th, when the Australians again took Hamel and Vaire Wood, the Tanks splendidly helping; it was at the full on and after August 8th, at the Battle of Amiens, the first page in the last chapter of the war.

The next incident described by my correspondent occurred at the taking of the St. Quentin section of the Hindenburg line by the 4th British Army, two American divisions leading the way.

"The attack," he writes, "had been a very difficult one, and had only been successful in certain sectors. As usual, the attack had been launched at dawn, and the morning had been exceptionally misty. Later on the mist began to roll away rather quickly, and it was found that in one sector where the attack had made no progress, the Germans were in a position"—owing to the ridge they occupied having been till then shrouded in mist—"to bring very heavy machine-gun fire to bear on the backs of the troops advancing in a sector where the attack had gone well. Unless something were done at once to drive the Germans from the ridge they were holding, not only would many lives be lost, but the result of the attack which had gone well would be jeopardised. Without waiting for orders and on their own initiative, two Tanks, which were standing by in order to attack with fresh troops later in the day, drove straight for the ridge.[11] Two Tanks, without either infantry or artillery support, went straight for an unbroken portion of the German line. They reached the ridge, and drove the Germans off it. Both Tanks were hit by several shells, and caught fire. The survivors of the crews, with a few infantry soldiers, organised the ridge for defence, turned the German machine guns round, and when the Germans counter-attacked, this small but determined garrison poured so hot a fire on them from their own guns that they were driven back, and the important post secured."

[11] The italics are mine.

There is nothing, I think, that need prevent me from pointing out, what there is no hint of in the letter itself—that the writer of it was in one of the Tanks, and was severely wounded.

In the last actions of the war, even the semblance of a Tank was sometimes enough! "Supply Tanks"—writes my informant—"were then being used, which looked like the real thing, but were only very slightly armoured. They were intended to carry material, sometimes munitions, and even food. Three of these pseudo-tanks were carrying up material to rebuild a bridge which had been destroyed. They discovered, when they neared the place, that the enemy were holding it in some strength, and our infantry could not advance. Moreover directly the Tanks appeared, they began to draw fire—which they were not meant to face—and the situation was threatening. But, with great pluck and resource, the Tanks decided just to go on, and trust to their looks, which were like those of the fighting Tanks, to drive the enemy from the position.... One Tank became a casualty; but the other two went straight for the German lines; and the Germans, under the impression that they were being attacked by fighting Tanks, either put up their hands or fled."

Thus, in its last moments of resistance, the German Army, now but the ghost of itself, was scattered by the ghost of a Tank! What was being prepared for it, had the struggle gone on, is told in a memorandum on Tanks organisation which has come my way, and makes one alternately shudder at the war that might have been, and rejoice in the peace that is. In the last weeks of the war, Tank organisation was going rapidly forward. A new Tank Board, consisting of Naval, Military, and Industrial members, was concentrating all its stored knowledge on "the application of naval tactics to land warfare," in other words, on the development of Tanks, and had the war continued, the complete destruction of the German Armies would have been brought about in 1919 by "a Tank programme of some six thousand machines." When one considers that for the whole of the three last victorious months in which Tanks played such an astonishing part, the British Armies never possessed more than four hundred of them, who travelled like a circus from army to army, the significance of this figure will be understood. Nor could Germany, by any possibility, have produced either the labour or the material necessary, whereby to meet Tank with Tank. The game was played out and the stakes lost.

* * * * *

But of fresh headings in this last tremendous chapter of England's Effort, there might be no end. I can only glance at one or two of them.

The Air Force? Ah, that, indeed, is another story—and so great a one, that all I can attempt here is to put together[12] a few facts and figures, in one of those comparisons of the "beginning," with the "end," of time with time, by which alone some deposit from the stream of history in which we are all bathed filters into the mind, and—with good luck: stays there. Here, in Hertfordshire, in the first summer of the war, how great an event was still the passage of an aeroplane over these quiet woods! How the accidents of the first two years appalled us, heart-broken spectators, and the inexorable military comment upon them: "Accidents or no accidents, we have got to master this thing, and master the Germans in it." And, accidents or no accidents, the young men of Britain and France steadily made their way to the aviation schools, having no illusions at all, in those early days, as to the special and deadly risks to be run, yet determined to run them, partly from clear-eyed patriotism, partly from that natural call of the blood which makes an Englishman or a Frenchman delight in danger and the untried for their own sakes. Thenceforward, the wonderful tale ran, mounting to its climax. At the beginning of the war the military wing of the British Air Service consisted of 1,844 officers and men. At the conclusion of the war there were, in round numbers, 28,000 officers and 264,000 other ranks employed under the Air Board. From under 2,000 to nearly 300,000!—and in four years! And the uses to which this new Army of the Winds was put, grew perpetually with its growth. Let us remember that, while aeroplane reconnaissance was of immense service in the earliest actions of the war, there was no artillery observation by aeroplane till after the first Battle of the Marne. There is the landmark. Artillery observation was used for the first time at the Battle of the Aisne, in the German retreat from the Marne. Thenceforward, month by month, the men in the clouds became increasingly the indispensable guides and allies of the men on the ground, searching out and signalling the guns of the enemy, while preventing his fliers from searching out and signalling our own. Next came the marvellous development of aerial photography, by which the whole trench world, the artillery positions and hinterland of the hostile army could be mapped day by day for the information of those attacking it; the development of the bombing squadrons, which began by harassing the enemy's communications immediately behind the fighting line, and developed into those formidable expeditions of the Independent Force into Germany itself, which so largely influenced the later months of the war. Finally, the airman, not content with his own perpetual and deadly fighting in the air, fighting in which the combatants of all nations developed a daring beyond the dreams of any earlier world, began to take part in the actual land-battle itself, swooping on reserves, firing into troops on the march, or bringing up ammunition.

[12] From the recent Official Report issued by the Air Board.

And while the flying Army of the Winds was there developing, the flying Army of the Seas, its twin brother, was not a whit behind. The record of the Naval Air Service, as the scouts for the Fleet, the perpetual foe of, and ceaseless spy upon, the submarine, will stir the instincts for song and story in our race while song and story remain. It was the naval airmen who protected and made possible the safe withdrawal of the troops from Suvla and Helles; it was they who discovered and destroyed the mines along our coasts; who fought the enemy seaplanes man to man, and gun to gun; who gave the pirate nests of Zeebrugge and Ostend no rest by day or night, who watched over the ceaseless coming and going of the British, Dominion, and American troops across the Channel; who were the eyes of our coasts as the ships, laden with the men, food, and munitions, which were the life-blood of the Allied Cause, drew homeward to our ports, with the submarines on their track, and the protecting destroyers at their side.

Nor did we only manufacture planes and train men for ourselves. "The Government of the United States," says the Air Service Report, "has paid a striking tribute to the British Air Service by adopting our system of training. The first 500 American officer cadets to be trained went through the School of Military Aeronautics at Oxford, afterwards graduating at various aerodromes in England. These officers formed the nucleus of American schools, which were eventually started both in the United States and in France.... In all about 700 American pilots have passed through our schools.... And when the question of producing a standardised engine was considered every facility was given and all our experience placed at the disposal of the American Government, with the result that the Liberty engine was evolved."

Meanwhile the constant adaptation to new conditions required in the force stimulated the wits of everybody concerned. Take aerial photography. The first successful photograph was taken in November, 1914, of the village of Neuve Chapelle. The photographic section then consisted of two officers and three men, with two cameras and a portable box of chemicals. At the present day it contains 250 officers and 3,000 men—with a large training school; and its prints have been issued by the million.

Meanwhile the development of our aircraft fire had driven the aerial photographer from a height of 3,000 feet up to a height of 22,000, where, but for invention, he might have perished with cold, or found it impossible to breathe. But intelligence pursued him, providing him with oxygen and with electric heating apparatus in the upper air. And when, on the other hand, he or his comrade swooped down to within a few hundred feet of the earth, in order to co-operate in attack with infantry or Tanks, again intelligence came into play, inventing a special armoured machine for the protection of the new tactics.

The growth of "wireless," as a means of air-communication, is another astounding chapter in this incredible story. Only one of the machines which left with the original Expeditionary Force was fitted with "wireless" apparatus, and it was not used till the first Battle of the Aisne, when co-operation with the artillery first began. There are now 520 officers in the "wireless" branch and 6,200 other ranks; while there are 80 "wireless" stations in France alone and several hundred battery stations. "Wireless" telephony, too, has been made practical since 1917; and over a range of some 75 miles has been of deadly use to the artillery, especially at night, when the watcher in the skies becomes aware of lighted aerodromes, or railway stations, behind the enemy lines.

"Many wonders there be, but none more wonderful than man," said Sophocles, in the fifth century before Christ, and he gives the catalogue of man's discoveries, as the reflective Greek saw it, at that moment of the world's history. Man, "master of cunning," had made for himself ships, ploughs, and houses, had tamed the horse and the bull; had learned how to snare wild creatures for food, had developed speech, intelligence, civilisation. Marvels indeed! But had it ever occurred to such a Greek to ponder the general stimulus given to human faculty by war? Probably, for the wise Greek had thought of most things, and some reader of these pages who knows his rich literature better than I do, will very likely remember how and where. Modern history, indeed, is full of examples, from the Crusades onward. But there can never have been any such demonstration of it as this war has yielded. The business of peace is now, largely, to turn to account the discoveries of the war—in mechanics, chemistry, electricity, medical science, methods of organisation, and a score of other branches of human knowledge, and that in the interests of life, and not of death. For the human loss of the war there is no comfort, except in those spiritual hopes and convictions by which ultimately most men live. But for the huge economic waste, the waste of money and material and accumulated plant, caused by the struggle, there is some comfort, in this development of faculty, this pushing forward of human knowledge into regions hitherto unmapped, which the war has seen. This week, for instance,[13] American and British airmen are competing in the first Atlantic flight, and the whole world is looking on. Again there is risk of danger and death, but the prizes sought are now the prizes of peace, the closer brotherhood of men, a truer knowledge one of another, the interchanges of science and labour; and they are sought by means taught in the furnace of war. Thus, from the sacrifices of the terrible past may spring a quickened life for the new world. Will that new world be worthy of them?—there is the question on which all depends. A certain anguish clings to it, as one measures the loss, and cannot yet measure the gain.

[13] May 19th.

* * * * *

I have dwelt on some of the accomplished wonders—the results of the war, in the material field—guns, Tanks, and aeroplanes. But just as mechanical devices were and are, in the opinion of the Commander-in-Chief, of no avail without the fighting men who use them; so behind the whole red pageant of the war lie two omnipresent forces without which it could not have been sustained for a day—Labour at the base, Directing Intelligence at the top. In the Labour battalions of the Army there has been a growth in numbers and a development in organisation only second to that of the fighting Army itself. Labour companies were already in being in 1914, but they chiefly worked at the ports, and were recruited mainly from dock labourers. Then it was realised that to employ the trained soldier on many of the ordinary "fatigue" duties was to waste his training, and Labour began to be sent plentifully to the front. For trench-digging, for hut-building, for the making and repair of roads and railways, for the handling and unloading of supplies and ammunition, for sanitation, salvage, moving the wounded at casualty clearing stations, and a score of other needs, the demand on the Labour battalions grew and grew.

How well I remember the shivering Kaffir boys and Indians at work on the handling of stores and ammunition in the cold spring of 1917!—and the navvy battalions on the roads before the Chinese had arrived in force, and before the great rush of German prisoners began. Between the British navvy battalions, many of them elderly men past military age, or else unfit in some way for the fighting line, and their comrades in the trenches, there were generally the friendliest relations. The fighting man knew well what he owed to the "old boys." I have before me an account by a Highland officer of the relation between a navvy and a regular battalion in the Ypres salient. "Their huts stretched along the side of the road which led us towards our trenches; and every time we passed that way the sound of the pipes would bring them out of their billets in crowds to cheer us in, or to welcome us back if we were returning. They kept that road in splendid repair, despite the heavy wear and tear of the endless traffic which used it, and we blessed them many times. There was a two-miles stretch across shell-torn, muddy country just behind the fighting line. Tired men, just relieved from the trenches, and carrying heavy equipment, naturally loathed it as a Slough of Despond; but when we struck the good, honest surface of the navvy battalion's road, though there were many miles still between us and rest, we felt the journey was as good as over, so easy, by comparison, had marching become. A close friendship grew up between our battalions. Our officers invited their officers to dinner. Our men saluted their officers, and if one of our officers happened to come on the scene of their operations, some old veteran, wearing perhaps the medal ribbon of campaigns dating back a generation, would call his gang to attention, and gravely give the salute after the manner of thirty years ago. And when one realised what the age of these men must be, who were wearing decorations of Egyptian and Indian frontier campaigns, with not a few Zulu ribbons among them, one marvelled at the skill and strength with which the old fellows wielded pick and shovel. They could not march any great distance, and we helped them along in motor buses; but once set them down by their tracks, though the road might be chaos and the shell-holes innumerable, obstacles were cleared away, holes filled up, and the new surface well and truly laid with a magical rapidity.... The idea of taking shelter never seemed to occur to them; they openly rejoiced at being under fire.... Perhaps though they mended our roads and gave us easy walking, they helped us most by the quiet steadfastness of their example. One never saw them toiling away in the deathtrap of the Ypres salient without realising that they were the fathers of our generation, men who had already spent themselves in Britain's cause when we were children, and had now come out to serve her again, at her call, and to watch how we young ones played up."

Some more recent notes from G.H.Q. dwell warmly on the invaluable services rendered by the Labour Corps in the Battle of Cambrai, November, 1917, in the defensive battle of last spring, and in the autumn attacks which ended the war. In the Cambrai attack the Labour men were concentrated 1,000 yards behind the line, so as to be ready for immediate advance. A light railway was run into Marcoing within twenty-four hours of its capture, and another into Moeuvres under heavy fire, while the approaches to the bridges over the Canal du Nord were carried out by men working only 1,000 yards from the enemy machine guns posted on one of the locks of the Canal. In the withdrawals of last March and April, throughout the heavy defensive fighting of those dangerous weeks, no men were steadier. Theirs was the heavy work of digging new defence lines—at night—with long marches to and from their billets. Casualties and wastage were heavy, but could not be helped, as fighting men could not be spared. Yet the units concerned behaved "with the greatest gallantry." "One company," says a report from G.H.Q., "worked day and night in a forward ammunition dump for three days, and then marched seventy miles in six days, working a day and night in another ammunition dump on the way, with no transport but one G.S. wagon to help them; in their retirements, effected as they were with almost no transport, they lost practically all their equipment, and yet without getting time to rest and re-equip, they had to be moved at once to work on defence lines."

The total number of Labour men employed in stemming the German rush on Amiens, by the construction of new lines of defence, was no less than 62,000—two-thirds, nearly, of the whole British Army at Waterloo!

Then, when our counter-attack began, the task of the Labour men was reversed. Now it was for them to go forward, well ahead of the reserves, and some 1,000 yards ahead of the skilled transport troops and the construction trains that were laying the line for which the Labour men prepared the way. Death or wounds were always in the day's risks, but the Labour men "held on." By this time there were 350,000 men under the Labour Directorate—a force about equal to our whole Territorial and Regular Army before the war. They were a strange and motley host!—95,000 British, 84,000 Chinese, 138,000 Prisoners of War, 1,500 Cape Coloured, 4,000 West Indians, 11,000 South African natives, 100 Fijians, 7,500 Egyptians, 1,500 Indians—so run the principal items. The catalogue given of their labours covers all the rough work of the war household. They were the handy men everywhere, adding on occasion forestry and agriculture to their war-work, and the British Labour battalions were, of course, the stiffening and superintending element for the rest.