_Easter Eve_, 1917.
DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT,--Since I finished my last letter to you, before the
meeting of Congress, great days have come and gone.
_America is with us!_
At last, we English folk can say that to each other, without reserve or
qualification, and into England's mood of ceaseless effort and anxiety
there has come a sudden relaxation, a breath of something canning and
sustaining. What your action may be--whether it will shorten the war,
and how much, no one here yet knows. But when in some great strain a
friend steps to your side, you don't begin with questions. He is there.
Your cause, your effort, are his. Details will come. Discussion will
come. But there is a breathing space first, in which feeling rests upon
itself before it rushes out in action. Such a breathing space for
England are these Easter days!
Meanwhile, the letters from the Front come in with their new note of
joy. "You should see the American faces in the Army to-day!" writes one.
"They bring a new light into this dismal spring." How many of them?
Mayn't we now confess to ourselves and our Allies that there is already,
the equivalent of an American division, fighting with the Allied Armies
in France, who have used every honest device to get there? They have
come in by every channel, and under every pretext--wavelets, forerunners
of the tide. For now, you too have to improvise great armies, as we
improvised ours in the first two years of war. And with you as with us,
your unpreparedness stands as your warrant before history, that not from
American minds and wills came the provocation to this war.
But your actual and realised co-operation sets me on lines of thought
that distract me, for the moment, from the first plan of this letter.
The special Musketry School with which I had meant to open it, must wait
till its close. I find my mind full instead--in connection with the news
from Washington--of those recently issued War Office pamphlets of which
I spoke in my last letter; and I propose to run through their story.
These pamphlets, issued not for publication but for the information of
those concerned, are the first frank record of _our national experience_
in connection with the war; and for all your wonderful American resource
and inventiveness, your American energy and wealth, you will certainly,
as prudent men, make full use of our experience in the coming months.
Last year, for _England's Effort_, I tried vainly to collect some of
these very facts and figures, which the War Office was still
jealously--'and no doubt quite rightly--withholding. Now at last they
are available, told by "authority," and one can hardly doubt that each
of these passing days will give them--for America a double significance.
Surpass the story, if you can; we shall bear you no grudge! But up till
now, it remains a chapter unique in the history of war. Many Americans,
as your original letter to me pointed out, had still, last year,
practically no conception of what we were doing and had done. The
majority of our own people, indeed, were in much the same case. While
the great story was still in the making, while the foundations were
still being laid, it was impossible to correct all the annoying
underestimates, all the ignorant or careless judgments, of people who
took a point for the whole. The men at the heart of things could only
set their teeth, keep silence and give no information that could help
the enemy. The battle of the Somme, last July, was the first real
testing of their work. The Hindenburg retreat, the successes in
Mesopotamia, the marvellous spectacle of the Armies in France--and
before this letter could be sent to Press, the glorious news from the
Arras front!--are the present fruits of it.
Like you, we had, at the outbreak of war, some 500,000 men, all told, of
whom not half were fully trained. None of us British folk will ever
forget the Rally of the First Hundred Thousand! On the 8th of August,
four days after the Declaration of War, Lord Kitchener asked for them.
He got them in a fortnight. But the stream rushed on--in the fifth week
of the war alone 250,000 men enlisted; 30,000 recruits--the yearly
number enlisted before the war--joined in one day. Within six or seven
weeks the half-million available at the beginning of the war had been
_more than doubled._
Then came a pause. The War Office, snowed under, not knowing where to
turn for clothes, boots, huts, rifles, guns, ammunition, tried to check
the stream by raising the recruits' standards. A mistake!--but soon
recognised. In another month, under the influence of the victory on the
Marne, and while the Germans were preparing the attacks on the British
Line so miraculously beaten off in the first battle of Ypres, the
momentary check had been lost in a fresh outburst of national energy.
You will remember how the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee came into
being, that first autumn?--how the Prime Minister took the lead, and the
two great political parties of the country agreed to bring all their
organisation, central or local, to bear on the supreme question of
getting men for the Army. Tory and Radical toured the country together.
The hottest opponents stood on the same platform. _L'union sacrée_--to
use the French phrase, so vivid and so true, by which our great Ally has
charmed her own discords to rest in defence of the country--became a
reality here too, in spite of strikes, in spite of Ireland.
By July 1915--the end of the first year of war--more than 2,000,000 men
had voluntarily enlisted. But the military chiefs knew well that it was
but a half-way house. They knew, too, that it was not enough to get men
and rush them out to the trenches as soon as any kind of training could
be given them. The available men must be sorted out. Some, indeed, must
be brought back from the fighting line for work as vital as the
fighting itself.
_So Registration came_--the first real step towards organising the
nation. 150,000 voluntary workers helped to register all men and women
in the country, from eighteen to sixty-five, and on the results Lord
Derby built his group system, which _almost_ enabled us to do without
compulsion. Between October and December 1915, another two million and a
quarter men had "attested"--that is, had pledged themselves to come up
for training when called on.
But, as every observer of this new England knows, we have here less than
half the story. From a nation not invaded, protected, on the contrary,
by its sea ramparts from the personal cruelties and ravages of war, to
gather in between four and five million voluntary recruits was a great
achievement. But to turn these recruits at the shortest possible notice,
under the hammer-blows of a war, in which our enemies had every initial
advantage, into armies equipped and trained according to modern
standards, might well have seemed to those who undertook it an
impossible task. And the task had to be accomplished, the riddle solved,
before, in the face of the enemy, the incredible difficulties of it
could possibly be admitted. The creators of the new armies worked, as
far as they could, behind a screen. But now the screen is down, and we
are allowed to see their difficulties in their true perspective--as they
existed during the first months of the war.
In the first place--accommodation! At the opening of war we had
barrack-room for 176,000 men. What to do with these capped, bare-headed,
or straw-hatted multitudes who poured in at Lord Kitchener's call! They
were temporarily housed--somehow--under every kind of shelter. But
military huts for half a million men were immediately planned--then for
nearly a million.
Timber--labour--lighting--water--drainage--roads--everything, had to be
provided, and was provided. Billeting filled up the gaps, and large
camps were built by private enterprise to be taken in time by the
Government. Of course mistakes were made. Of course there were some
dishonest contractors and some incompetent officials. But the breath,
the winnowing blast of the national need was behind it all. By the end
of the first year of war, the "problem of quartering the troops in the
chief training centres had been solved."
In the next place, there were no clothes. A dozen manufacturers of khaki
cloth existed before the war. They had to be pushed up as quickly as
possible to 200. Which of us in the country districts does not remember
the blue emergency suits, of which a co-operative society was able by a
lucky stroke to provide 400,000 for the new recruits?--or the other
motley coverings of the hosts that drilled in our fields and marched
about our lanes? The War Office Notes, under my hand, speak of these
months as the "tatterdemalion stage." For what clothes and boots there
were must go to the men at the Front, and the men at home had just to
take their chance.
Well! It took a year and five months--breathless months of strain and
stress--while Germany was hammering East and West on the long-drawn
lines of the Allies. But by then, January 1916, the Army was not only
clothed, housed, and very largely armed, but we were manufacturing for
our Allies.
As to the arms and equipment, look back at these facts. When the
Expeditionary Force had taken its rifles abroad in August 1914, 150,000
rifles were left in the country, and many of them required to be
resighted. The few Service rifles in each battalion were handed round
"as the Three Fates handed round their one eye, in the story of
Perseus"; old rifles, and inferior rifles "technically known as D.P.,"
were eagerly made use of. But after seven months' hard training with
nothing better than these makeshifts, "men were apt to get depressed."
It was just the same with the Artillery. At the outbreak of war we had
guns for eight divisions--say 140,000 men. And there was no plant
wherewith to make and keep up more than that supply. Yet guns had to be
sent as fast as they could be made to France, Egypt, Gallipoli. How were
the gunners at home to be trained?
It was done, so to speak, with blood and tears. For seven months it was
impossible for the gunner in training even to see, much less to work or
fire the gun to which he was being trained. Zealous officers provided
dummy wooden guns for their men. All kinds of devices were tried. And
even when the guns themselves arrived, they came often without the
indispensable accessories--range-finders, directors, and the like.
It was a time of hideous anxiety for both Government and War Office. For
the military history of 1915 was largely a history of shortage of guns
and ammunition--whether on the Western or Eastern fronts. All the same,
by the end of 1915 the thing was in hand. The shells from the new
factories were arriving in ever-increasing volume; and the guns were
following.
In a chapter of _England's Effort_ I have described the amazing
development of some of the great armament works in order to meet this
cry for guns, as I saw it in February 1916. The second stage of the war
had then begun. The first was over, and we were steadily overtaking our
colossal task. The Somme proved it abundantly. But the expansion _still_
goes on; and what the nation owes to the directing brains and ceaseless
energy of these nominally private but really national firms has never
been sufficiently recognised. On my writing-desk is a letter received,
not many days ago, from a world-famous firm whose works I saw last year:
"Since your visit here in the early part of last year, there have been
very large additions to the works." Buildings to accommodate new
aeroplane and armament construction of different kinds are mentioned,
and the letter continues: "We have also put up another gun-shop, 565
feet long, and 163 feet wide--in three extensions--of which the third is
nearing completion. These additions are all to increase the output of
guns. The value of that output is now 60 per cent, greater than it was
in 1915. In the last twelve months, the output of shells has been one
and a half times more than it was in the previous year." No wonder that
the humane director who writes speaks with keen sympathy of the
"long-continued strain" upon masters and men. But he adds--"When we all
feel it, we think of our soldiers and sailors, doing their
duty--unto death."
And then--to repeat--if the _difficulties of equipment_ were huge, they
were almost as nothing to the _difficulties of training_. The facts as
the War Office has now revealed them (the latest of these most
illuminating brochures is dated April 2nd, 1917) are almost incredible.
It will be an interesting time when our War Office and yours come to
compare notes!--"when Peace has calmed the world." For you are now
facing the same grim task--how to find the shortest cuts to the making
of an Army--which confronted us in 1914.
In the first place, what military trainers there were in the country had
to be sent abroad with the first Expeditionary Force. Adjutants,
N.C.O.'s, all the experienced pilots in the Flying Corps, nearly all the
qualified instructors in physical training, the vast majority of all the
seasoned men in every branch of the Service--down, as I have said, to
the Army cooks--departed overseas. At the very last moment an officer or
two were shed from every battalion of the Expeditionary Force to train
those left behind. Even so, there was "hardly even a nucleus of experts
left." And yet--officers for 500,000 men had to be found--_within a
month_--from August 4th, 1914.
How was it done? The War Office answer makes fascinating reading. The
small number of regular officers left behind--200 officers of the Indian
Army--retired officers, "dug-outs"--all honour to them!--wounded officers
from the Front; all were utilised. But the chief sources of supply, as
we all know, were the Officers' Training Corps at the Universities and
Public Schools which we owe to the divination, the patience, the hard
work of Lord Haldane. _Twenty thousand potential officers were supplied_
by the O.T.C's. What should we have done without them?
But even so, there was no time to train them in the practical business
of war--and such a war! Yet _their_ business was to train recruits,
while they themselves were untrained. At first, those who were granted
"temporary commissions" were given a month's training. Then even that
became impossible. During the latter months of 1914 "there was
practically no special training given to infantry subalterns, with
temporary commissions." With 1915, the system of a month's training was
revived--pitifully little, yet the best that could be done. But during
the first five months of the war most of the infantry subalterns of the
new armies "had to train themselves as best they could in the intervals
of training their men."
One's pen falters over the words. Before the inward eye rises the
phantom host of these boy-officers who sprang to England's aid in the
first year of the war, and whose graves lie scattered in an endless
series along the western front and on the heights of Gallipoli. Without
counting the cost for a moment, they came to the call of the Great
Mother, from near and far. "They trained themselves, while they were
training their men." Not for them the plenty of guns and shells that now
at least lessens the hideous sacrifice that war demands; not for them
the many protective devices and safeguards that the war itself has
developed. Their young bodies--their precious lives--paid the price. And
in the Mother-heart of England they lie--gathered and secure--for ever.
* * * * *
But let me go a little further with the new War Office facts.
The year 1915 saw great and continuous advance. During that year, an
_average number of over a million troops_ were being trained in the
United Kingdom, apart from the armies abroad. The First, Second, and
Third Armies naturally came off much better than the Fourth and Fifth,
who were yet being recruited all the time. What equipment, clothes and
arms there were the first three armies got; the rest had to wait. But
all the same, the units of these later armies were doing the best they
could for themselves all the time; nobody stood still. And
gradually--surely--order was evolved out of the original chaos. The Army
Orders of the past had dropped out of sight with the beginning of the
war. Everything had to be planned anew. The one governing factor was the
"necessity of getting men to the front at the earliest possible moment."
Six months' courses were laid down for all arms. It was very rare,
however, that any course could be strictly carried out, and after the
first three armies, the training of the rest seemed, for a time, to be
all beginnings!--with the final stage farther and farther away. And
always the same difficulty of guns, rifles, huts, and the rest.
But, like its own tanks, the War Office went steadily on, negotiating
one obstacle after another. Special courses for special subjects began
to be set up. Soon artillery officers had no longer to join their
batteries _at once_ on appointment; R.E. officers could be given a seven
weeks' training at Chatham; little enough, "for a man supposed to know
the use and repairs of telephones and telegraphs, or the way to build or
destroy a bridge, or how to meet the countless other needs with which a
sapper is called upon to deal!" Increasing attention was paid to staff
training and staff courses. And insufficient as it all was, for months,
the general results of this haphazard training, when the men actually
got into the field--all short-comings and disappointments admitted--were
nothing short of wonderful. Had the Germans forgotten that we are and
always have been a fighting people? That fact, at any rate, was brought
home to them by the unbroken spirit of the troops who held the line in
France and Flanders in 1915 against all attempts to break through; and
at Neuve Chapelle, or Loos, or a hundred other minor engagements, only
wanted numbers and ammunition--above all ammunition!--to win them the
full victory they had rightly earned.
Of this whole earlier stage, the _junior subaltern_ was the leading
figure. It was he--let me insist upon it anew--whose spirit made the new
armies. If the tender figure of the "_Lady of the Lamp_" has become for
many of us the chief symbol of the Crimean struggle, when Britain comes
to embody in sculpture or in painting that which has touched her most
deeply in this war, she will choose--surely--the figure of a boy of
nineteen, laughing, eager, undaunted, as quick to die as to live,
carrying in his young hands the "Luck" of England.
* * * * *
But with the end of 1915, the first stage, the elementary stage, of the
new Armies came to an end. When I stood, in March 1916, on the
Scherpenberg hill, looking out over the Salient, new conditions reigned.
The Officer Cadet Corps had been formed; a lively and continuous
intercourse between the realities of the front and the training at home
had been set up; special schools in all subjects of military interest
had been founded, often, as we have seen, by the zeal of individual
officers, to be then gradually incorporated in the Army system. Men
insufficiently trained in the early months had been given the
opportunity--which they eagerly took--of beginning at the beginning
again, correcting mistakes and incorporating all the latest knowledge.
Even a lieutenant-colonel, before commanding a battalion, could go to
school once more; and even for officers and men "in rest," there were,
and are, endless opportunities of seeing and learning, which few wish
to forgo.
And that brings me to what is now shaping itself--the final result. The
year just passed, indeed--from March to March--has practically rounded
our task--though the "learning" of the Army is never over!--and has seen
the transformation--whether temporary or permanent, who yet can
tell?--of the England of 1914, with its zealous mobs of untrained and
"tatterdemalion" recruits, into a great military power,[This letter was
finished just as the news of the Easter Monday Battle of Arras was
coming in.] disposing of armies in no whit inferior to those of Germany,
and bringing to bear upon the science of war--now that Germany has
forced us to it--the best intelligence, and the best _character_, of the
nation. The most insolent of the German military newspapers are already
bitterly confessing it.
* * * * *
My summary--short and imperfect as it is--of this first detailed account
of its work which the War Office has allowed to be made public--has
carried me far afield.
The motor has been waiting long at the door of the hospitable
headquarters which have entertained us! Let me return to it, to the
great spectacle of the present--after this retrospect of the Past.
Again the crowded roads--the young and vigorous troops--the manifold
sights illustrating branch after branch of the Army. I recall a draft,
tired with marching, clambering with joy into some empty lorries, and
sitting there peacefully content, with legs dangling and the ever
blessed cigarette for company, then an aeroplane station--then a
football field, with a violent game going on--a Casualty Clearing
Station, almost a large hospital--another football match!--a battery of
eighteen-pounders on the march, and beyond an old French market town
crowded with lorries and men. In the midst of it D---- suddenly draws my
attention to a succession of great nozzles passing us, with their teams
and limbers. I have stood beside the forging and tempering of their
brothers in the gun-shops of the north, have watched the testing and
callipering of their shining throats. They are 6-inch naval guns on
their way to the line--like everything else, part of the storm to come.
And in and out, among the lorries and the guns, stream the French folk,
women, children, old men, alert, industrious, full of hope, with
friendly looks for their Allies. Then the town passes, and we are out
again in the open country, leaving the mining village behind. We are not
very far at this point from that portion of the line which I saw last
year under General X's guidance. But everything looks very quiet and
rural, and when we emerged on the high ground of the school we had come
to see, I might have imagined myself on a Surrey or Hertfordshire
common. The officer in charge, a "mighty hunter" in civil life, showed
us his work with a quiet but most contagious enthusiasm. The problem
that he, and his colleagues engaged in similar work in other sections of
the front, had to solve, was--how to beat the Germans at their own game
of "sniping," which cost us so many lives in the first year and a half
of war; in other words, how to train a certain number of men to an art
of rifle-shooting, combining the instincts and devices of a "Pathfinder"
with the subtleties of modern optical and mechanical science. "Don't
think of this as meant primarily to kill," says the Chief of the School,
as he walks beside me--"it is meant primarily to _protect_. We lost our
best men--young and promising officers in particular--by the score
before we learnt the tricks of the German 'sniper' and how to meet
them." German "sniping," as our guide explains, is by no means all
tricks. For the most part, it means just first-rate shooting, combined
with the trained instinct and _flair_ of the sportsman. Is there
anything that England--and Scotland--should provide more abundantly?
Still, there are tricks, and our men have learnt them.
Of the many surprises of the school I may not now speak. Above all, it
is a school of _observation_. Nothing escapes the eye or the ear. Every
point, for instance, connected with our two unfamiliar figures will have
been elaborately noted by those men on the edge of the hill; the officer
in charge will presently get a careful report on us.
"We teach our men the old great game of war--wit against wit--courage
against courage--life against life. We try many men here, and reject a
good few. But the men who have gone through our training here are
valuable, both for attack and defence--above all, let me repeat it, they
are valuable for _protection_."
And what is meant by this, I have since learnt in greater detail. Before
these schools were started, _every day_ saw a heavy toll--especially of
officers' lives--taken by German snipers. Compare with this one of the
latest records: that out of fifteen battalions there were only nine men
killed by snipers _in three months._
We leave the hill, half sliding down the frozen watercourse that leads
to it, and are in the motor again, bound for an Army Headquarters.