G. H. Q.
(MONTREUIL-SUR-MER).
[Illustration]
G. H. Q.
(MONTREUIL-SUR-MER)
BY
"G. S. O."
WITH A MAP AND THIRTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS.
[Illustration]
LONDON:
PHILIP ALLAN & CO.,
QUALITY COURT, CHANCERY LANE, W.C.
1920.
PRINTED BY
WHITEHEAD BROS., WOLVERHAMPTON.
TO
THE PEOPLE AT HOME
WHOSE UNBENDING RESOLUTION
AND UNGRUDGING GENEROSITY
UPHELD THE SOLDIERS' CONFIDENCE
THIS BOOK IS GRATEFULLY
DEDICATED BY THE
AUTHOR.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--BEFORE G.H.Q. WENT TO MONTREUIL 1
The first stages of the War--"Trench War," a good
German invention--The Battle of Eyes--Waiting for
the Big Push--The Loos disappointment--Moving G.H.Q.
to Montreuil.
II.--MONTREUIL AND THE MONTREUILLOIS 16
How the Montreuillois once learned to hate the
English--Early history of the famous town--Its link
with the early Roman-British Empire--A border town
in the Anglo-French Wars--When G.H.Q. was bombed.
III.--G.H.Q. AT WORK 29
The Functions of G.H.Q.--The varying conditions to
be met--The working hours--The organisation of a
branch--The Chief's system.
IV.--G.H.Q. AT PLAY 47
The walks on the Ramparts--The "Monks" of Montreuil
had little time for sport--Precautions against
"joy-riding"--The jolly Officers' Club--Watching the
Map--Ladies at G.H.Q.
V.--THE MUNITIONS OF THE WAR 66
The Shell shortage--When relief came--The dramatic
Tanks--Bombs--Some ammunition figures--The ingenious
inventor.
VI.--THE MEDICAL SERVICES 80
The magic-workers of the war--Fighting the
Germans--Concerning the Victorian primness of
conversation and the present popularity of "v.d." as
a theme for small talk--The Army and "v.d."--The
etiquette of hospitals and the ways of matrons--The
war against Trench Feet--Mustard gas in 1918.
VII.--THE ANIMALS OF THE FORCE 98
A happy lot--The mud season in Flanders--The effects
of mustard gas--The character of the mule--Forage
difficulties--The French object to our horse
ration--The Americans side with us--The animal
record in 1918.
VIII.--THE FINANCIAL SERVICES 116
The generosity of the British People--G.H.Q. was not
a spendthrift--The Pay system--Curiosities of
banking in the field--Claims of the civilian
inhabitants--The looted rabbit.
IX.--THE ECONOMY SERVICES 129
What the German submarines taught us--The Salvage
Organisation--O.C. Rags, Bones and
Swill--Agriculture's good work and hard luck--The
Forestry Directorate--Soldiers learn economy in a
stern school.
X.--THE COMFORTS OF THE FORCE--SPIRITUAL AND OTHER 144
The Padres--The semi-religious organisations--E.F.C.
Comforts--Studying the Fighting man--The Great Beer
Save.
XI.--THE LABOUR AUXILIARIES 155
The queer ways of the Chinks--How to bury a Chinaman
properly--The Q.M.A.A.C.s and their fine
record--Other types of Labour auxiliaries--The
Labour Directorate.
XII.--G.H.Q. AND THE "NEW ARMY" 169
What G.H.Q. thought of the "Temporaries"--Old
prejudices and their reason--The material of the
"New Armies"--Some "New Army" Officers who did not
play the game--The Regular Army Trade Union accepts
its "dilutees."
XIII.--G.H.Q. AND THE DOMINION ARMIES 183
Our Parliament at the Club--A discussion of the
Dominions, particularly of Australia--Is the
Englishman shy or stand-offish?--How the "Anzacs"
came to be--The Empire after the War.
XIV.--EDUCATING THE ARMY 197
The beginning of an interesting movement--The work
of a few enthusiasts--The unexpected peace--Humours
of lectures to the Army--Books for the Army--The
Army Printery.
XV.--THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT 209
The disappointments of 1916 and 1917--The collapse
of Russia--The Cambrai Battle--The German
propaganda--Fears of irresolution at
Home--Reassurances from Home--Effects of the
Submarine war--An economical reorganisation at
G.H.Q.--A new Quartermaster General--Good effects of
cheerfulness at Home.
XVI.--ENTER THE AMERICANS 235
How the Germans were misled about the
Americans--Early American fighters--The arrivals in
May, 1918--American equipment--Our relations with
the Americans and what they thought of us--The
Portuguese.
XVII.--THE GERMAN SPRING OF 1918 254
Was G.H.Q. at fault?--Where we could best afford to
lose ground--Refugees complicate the
situation--Stark resolution of the French--All
Pas-de-Calais to be wrecked if necessary--How our
railways broke down--Amiens does not fall.
XVIII.--THE MOTOR LORRY THAT WAITED 272
How a motor lorry waited at the Ecole Militaire to
take away the maps to the Coast--The Motor Lorry
Reserve--An "appreciation" of the position--Germany
lost the War in the first three months--Some notes
of German blunders.
XIX.--THE UNITY OF COMMAND 283
Was it necessary?--Was a French Generalissimo
inevitable?--Our share in the guiding of the last
phase of the campaign--Points on which the British
had their way.
XX.--THE COMING OF VICTORY 293
The June Position--German attempts to pinch out our
lines of supplies--The attacks on hospitals--The
glorious last 14 weeks--G.H.Q.'s share.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
TO FACE PAGE
THE CHIEF _Frontispiece_
THE BOULOGNE GATE 1
THE CAVÉE SAINT FIRMIN 14
OUTSIDE THE RAMPARTS 20
THE MARKET 26
LT.-GEN. THE HON. SIR H. A. LAWRENCE 30
LT.-GEN. SIR G. H. FOWKE 38
THE GRANDE PLACE 42
THE RAMPARTS 48
THE THEATRE 50
IN THE OFFICERS' CLUB 54
THE PLACE GAMBETTA 60
THE FOSSE 72
A BY-WAY 80
A ROYAL VISIT: DECEMBER, 1918 90
THE EAST RAMPARTS 102
THE ARMY COMMANDERS 110
MAJOR-GEN. SIR C. A. BRAY 122
MAJOR-GEN. L. B. FRIEND 126
AN ARMY POSTER 132
BRIG.-GEN. THE EARL OF RADNOR 136
AT FORESTRY H.Q. 140
BRIG.-GEN. E. G. WACE 168
THE BOULOGNE GATE (FROM THE TOWN) 182
MAJOR-GEN. C. BONHAM-CARTER 198
LIEUT.-COL. D. BORDEN TURNER 202
CAPTAIN H. P. HANSELL 204
ON THE RAMPARTS 210
LIEUT.-GEN. SIR TRAVERS CLARKE 226
THE ECOLE MILITAIRE 272
AT THE CHIEF'S CHATEAU 284
"SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE" 292
MAP AT END
FOREWORD.
That fantastic life at G.H.Q., so greatly detached from the normal--the
life of the men whose words had power to send Armies into and out of
action, to give this Division rest and surcease from the agony of the
struggle, to assign to that Division the stress of a new effort; the men
into whose hands the nation poured millions without stint and at whose
call the whole world moved to spin or dig or forge--will it be of
interest now to recall some of its memories, to attempt an intimate
picture of its routine?
Fantastic the life was truly. One man of imagination, who had done his
work in the line so well as to win a reputation for great courage and
administrative ability, and had carried through with a quiet skill and a
simple dutifulness the responsibilities of the "small family" of a
regiment, found, when he was transferred to G.H.Q., that the sense of
responsibility was too great for his temperament. He was not a very
important cog of the machine. But the feeling that the motion which his
hand started set going so great a series of actions got on his nerves
to the extent that he could neither sleep nor eat with comfort, nor
decide the simplest matter without torturing doubt as to whether it were
right or wrong. He "moved on" within a few days.
Fortunately that sense of vision was rare. The average man was content
to "carry on" with his task with what good judgment Heaven gave him,
deciding as the established routine, or the common-sense shift of a new
emergency, dictated.
But looking back, reflecting on all the woeful results that might have
sprung from a careless blunder, from too great haste, from too
deliberate hesitation, from over fear or over confidence, it is to be
seen how fantastic, how abnormal was the life centred in that little
walled town of Montreuil, the focus of a spider's web of wires, at one
end of which were the soldiers in their trenches, at the other the
workers of the world at their benches. Yet we ate, drank, slept, played
a little and talked, very much as if we were workers in some commercial
house, directing coffee from a plantation to a warehouse and then to a
breakfast table, instead of dealing in blood and tears, drawing without
stint on human life and human hope so that the idea of Right and Liberty
might be saved in the world.
It is well that Imagination went to sleep, or was lacking. For so the
work could be done and the war directed to its safe conclusion. But a
record of the life we lived seems now, in retrospect, almost indecorous.
It is as if we should not have munched food, talked trivialities, while
before our eyes and under our hands was played out the greatest tragedy
Man has known; as if it would have been more fitting if we had gone from
uneasy couches, tight-lipped and anxious, to our desks, haunted always
by a sense of doom.
It was not like that. And, such as it was, I attempt to record it--a
serious enough life in any sense of the word, monkish in its denial of
some pleasures, rigid in discipline, exacting in work, but neither
austere nor anxious--such a life as studious boys might live in a Public
School, if there can be imagined a Public School in which sport was
reduced to the minimum essential to keep one fit for hard "swotting."
But a life with some relaxations, and some pleasures, cheerful, actually
light-hearted.
Questions of the conduct of the war must obtrude somewhat in this book,
but it will be only in so much as they are a necessary background to the
story of the life of G.H.Q.--of G.H.Q. in its later phase when it had
moved from St. Omer to Montreuil and had become what it was in the final
result, a capable Board of Directors of as glorious a company of
soldiers as the world has known. There will be no attempt at a history
of the war, no battle pictures, which are usually vain efforts to
measure the immeasurable. Yet it is hoped that the reader will get from
it some idea of the character and the complexities of the struggle.
Already fogs of controversy are obscuring many of the facts of the war.
There is a controversy whether the first Commander-in-Chief should have
been recalled when he was; about the merits of the second
Commander-in-Chief; about the "unity of command" decision; about the
relative merits of a strategy which would concentrate everything for a
supreme effort in France and a strategy which would seek a "back door"
to the German citadel; about the actual cause and duration of the shell
shortage. In accordance with our British custom we are mostly taking
sides, following some leader and putting our faith in his views, and all
his views, implicitly. Thus are formed parties. I claim with honesty,
and perhaps with correctness, not to belong to any of the parties. I
have set down these observations on G.H.Q. without a thought of whether
they may support this view or that view on the conduct of the war.
THE AUTHOR.
[Illustration: THE BOULOGNE GATE]
CHAPTER I.
BEFORE G.H.Q. WENT TO MONTREUIL.
The first stages of the War--"Trench War," a good German invention--The
Battle of Eyes--Waiting for the Big Push--The Loos disappointment--Moving
G.H.Q. to Montreuil.
It was the task of General Headquarters to try to see the War as a
whole, to obtain a knowledge not only of the strictly military situation
but, to an extent, also of the moral and the political situation of the
enemy and of our own forces. In the later stages of the campaign that
task was being done, _pace_ all the critics, with an efficiency that was
wonderful, seeing that before the Great War the British nation did not
allow its Army any chance at all of war practice on a big scale. Our
Generals, whatever skill they might have won in studying the theory of
war, had had no opportunity to practise big movements. They were very
much in the position of men trained in the running of a small provincial
store who were asked suddenly to undertake the conduct of one of the
mammoth "universal providers."
It is of G.H.Q. in the later stages of the war that I write, not G.H.Q.
of the earlier stages, when our Army was finding its feet. But a slight
generalisation regarding those earlier stages is necessary to an
understanding of the subsequent growth of the Army organisation and of
its Board of Directors at G.H.Q.
The small Army which crossed to France in 1914 was organised as an
Expeditionary Force for a war of movement. It did gallant work in the
first phase, as all have admitted. When the war of movement stopped and
the struggle settled down to the War of the Trenches, though that gave a
good opportunity of recruiting, it brought up an entirely new set of
problems, for which our organisation had made no provision at all and in
which British natural gifts did not have the best chance of display.
Indeed our training system at home refused in 1914-15 to "recognise"
Trench War. The New Armies were trained on the same lines as the old
Regular Army, but of course more hurriedly, more intensively, less
efficiently. They learned Trench Warfare--an almost entirely different
game--when they got out to the Front. A reversal of the process--to have
taught the much simpler Trench Warfare in the home camps and left the
teaching of movement warfare to training intervals in France--was an
obviously more economical system, and it was that adopted at a later
stage.
When a considered history of the war comes to be written, probably it
will give to the German High Command high praise for this period of
"Trench War." It was the one conspicuously good invention of the enemy.
It enabled him almost completely to stop the war in the one theatre
where he had to meet troops superior to his own, whilst his forces
ranged round Europe winning cheap victories and finally (though too late
as it proved) vanquishing opposition elsewhere. There is no doubt that
the Trench War device baffled our side for a time. I like the story of
Marshal Joffre explaining the position to an American war correspondent
and adding:
"You see there is nothing to be done."
"No. I suppose nobody could do anything?"
"Nobody."
"Not even Napoleon?"
But Marshal Joffre paused at that, and after a moment's reflection said:
"Yes, I suppose Napoleon could do something."
Finally the "something" came in the shape of the "Tank."
When Field Marshal Earl Haig took over the chief command he adopted the
system of frequent "raids" to give to the Trench War some of the
character of moving war, and that proved a highly useful step. Still,
this Trench War was not of the genius of our people; and it was very
dull. If I were seeking the fit adjective which could be applied to it
in its superlative it would certainly not be "exciting" nor yet
"dangerous." The life was exciting and it was dangerous--a little. It
was, however, neither very exciting nor very dangerous. But it was very,
very curious. Trench war had its moments, its hours of high emotion, of
intense excitement, of crowding dangers. Its routine--on the Western
front--was laborious, almost to the point of tediousness, demanding a
sober and constant carefulness in detail, and--provided you watched the
minutes and the winds, the twigs and the sky, had eyes, ears, and nerves
always on the alert--it was reasonably safe.
Trench War exciting? No; you could not allow it to be. The moments were
rare (to the majority of officers they never came) when the call was for
a gallant shout and a forward rush in which leadership took its most
obvious and its easiest form. The hours were always when, with cool,
suspicious, deducting mind, you were watching a sector, awaiting the
enemy's raiding attack or directing your own. Stalking and being
stalked, it was interesting, absorbing, but you could not allow it to be
exciting, or you would not do your work properly. War was robbed, in
that phase of the struggle, of most of its fascinations by the
spectacled Germans who had spent the previous half-century in the
counting house, the laboratory, and the cellar, preparing to destroy the
humanities of civilisation. Trench War was a grubbing kind of business.
Dangerous? Naturally, to an extent. But not nearly so dangerous as one
might judge from the lurid accounts of imaginative writers. It had its
hours of peril, of horror. But it was not all the time dangerous. For
six days out of seven, on an average, a soldier, if he observed the
strictest caution, was "following a dangerous trade," nothing more. On
the seventh day--I speak in averages--he had his risk about doubled. On
very rare occasions he had to take the risk of a fireman who goes into a
blazing house to rescue a child, or a policeman who stops a madly
bolting horse. Ordinarily one had to be careful "to watch the traffic;"
that was all. If you wished to take a long lingering look at the enemy's
trench you used a periscope. For a brief glance (to get a wide field of
view) you looked over the parapet. There were differing estimates of the
length of time it was safe to show your head over the parapet. Some said
five seconds, others twenty-five.
"The German is slow in the up-take," remarked the officer who insisted
that twenty-five seconds was quite a safe time to look over the parapet.
Behind the parapet it was almost as safe--and on dry days as
pleasant--as on a marine parade. A solid fortification of sandbags,
proof against any blow except that of a big high-explosive shell,
enclosed on each side a walk, drained, paved, lined with dug-outs, in
places adorned with little flower beds. I write, of course, of the
Trench War in its "settled" stage--not of those grim struggles around
Ypres in the Autumn of 1914.
Not exciting, not as dangerous as one would imagine, the Trench War was
more curious, more "uncanny," than it is possible to describe. Try to
imagine the huge ditch, some 300 miles long, from the North Sea to the
Swiss lakes, which was our trench, facing another ditch which was their
trench, all lined with Eyes, thousands, millions of Eyes. All day, all
night, these Eyes stare and stare. At night the hands serving them break
up the dark with star shells, and the brains behind them welcome the
day, only because it makes the scrutiny of Death more easy. On the front
edge of each ditch the Eyes are thick in line; farther back, in every
possible post of observation, are groups of Eyes, and Eyes soar up into
the air now and again to stare into the secrets concealed on the other
side. There are Eyes of infantry, Eyes of artillery, Eyes of airmen. The
scrutiny never pauses for an instant. Let an Eye blink a moment and it
may mean catastrophe, a stealthy rush on a trench or a flood of
poisoning gas. The great dark gutter stretching across Belgium and
France was fringed with staring Eyes; and every Eye had to record its
message to G.H.Q.
Carefulness, tedious, monotonous carefulness, absolute punctuality, and
grave attention to every detail--these were the warrior qualities in the
Trench War period. The minutes had to be watched, the grass watched lest
you trod down a path and gave away some secret to the Eyes yonder. All
the minute details of life were hedged in with precautions and
penalties.
This tedious Trench War was not the game for British blood, though on
the whole it was done well, especially after Loos when the raiding
policy was instituted. But it was tedious; and very clearly it was
impossible to win while it lasted. For victory the Germans had to be
turned out of those trenches. So, during the tedium of the Trench War we
would comfort ourselves with the thought that very soon the Big Push
must come. Often the most definite news came that it was fixed for the
next month. This very definite news was usually traced back to some
signaller who had overheard something on the telephone. Perhaps
Divisional H.Q. had a Member of Parliament (doing a "Cook's tour" of the
Front) to dinner and peremptory messages were going down to the Coast
asking for lobsters to be sent up. Now a guileless signaller would never
imagine that Generals and the like were interested in lobster. If he
thought of their diet at all he probably imagined they lived on trench
maps--of which the consumption was certainly huge. Thus the signaller,
hearing strange peremptory messages about lobsters, might conclude that
this was some very secret code, and, the Big Push being in all our
thoughts, that it would have reference to that most certainly. But for
many months it was not the Big Push; it was only the lobster, which was
the standard of gaiety and dissipation at a Mess Dinner.
At the time of the Loos attack it did really seem that the Big Push had
come. But we were disappointed. Perhaps at the Front we were as
impatient at the result as the people at home, but we could soothe our
impatience with the thought of the greatness of the technical
difficulties of arranging an advance with a battle-line hundreds of
miles in length, all entrenched (difficulties which did not occur to
those gentlemen who wrote weekly expert articles, to show how it should
be done). It was clear that if we could push forward a little at certain
vital points, a rich reward would be reaped. We knew that what would
seem the obvious thing--to press along the whole line and break through
in the weak parts--would have only landed us in a number of advanced
salients which would be hard, or impossible, to defend when they came
under enfilade fire. There were scores of places in which the German
would willingly have let us through; to destroy the advanced party
afterwards. We had to aim to push in wedges at our own selected points
where the salient thus formed could be defended and could seriously
threaten a German line of communication. It was not easy, for the number
of those points was limited and the German knew them all.
Loos showed very plainly what we were "up against." There was a long
pause for further preparation, a pause which seemed unendurably long at
the time when the French were taking such a hammering at Verdun and we
were going on with tedious Trench War and still more tedious
preparations behind the lines.
Criticism of the British military effort at this stage of the war was
fairly general and sometimes very hostile. Some assumed that we had
tried our last blow at Loos and that we would never do more than hold a
trench sector until the French could finish the war. At Home there were
critics who argued that the British military effort would have been more
wisely directed if, in the first stage of the war, the British
Expeditionary Force had been kept at home and used as the nucleus for
training a great continental army, ignoring the pressing circumstances
of August, 1914.
Undoubtedly in that way a great British Army could have been far more
quickly raised. Undoubtedly, too, the task of forming the new British
Army was very seriously handicapped by the draining away to France of
practically all the fully-trained men of military age in Great Britain.
But with a choice of two courses Great Britain took the more daring and
the more generous one; and that in human affairs is generally the better
one. The material help which the Five Divisions of the British Army gave
to the French was not negligible. The moral help was much greater. The
lack of those Divisions might have lost Paris to the French and left the
Germans in control of all France north and east of the Seine; and that
event might have ended the war--it would certainly have prejudiced
seriously the French recovery.
The risk taken by Great Britain in stripping her own territory of its
only efficient army was not inconsiderable. Direct attack by Germany was
seriously feared then. A bolder German naval policy, indeed, might have
secured an invasion of England. Plans were drawn up in England at one
time on the supposition of a German descent on our coasts being
successful in its first stages, and it was proposed to meet this by
converting a wide coastal section of England into a desert.
Criticism was to be silenced in time, for presently we were to open that
giant battle which was not to finish until November, 1918, and which
was then to finish with the British Army the most important force in the
Field.
G.H.Q. moved to Montreuil on March 31st, 1916. On the same date, it may
be said, the British Army in France came to man's estate. It had been up
to this an "auxiliary army" holding a small section of the front, and a
"training army" getting ready to take over--as ultimately it did take
over--the main burden of the war; for, counting its captures of
prisoners and guns from August, 1918, to November 11th, 1918, the
British Army's share in the final victory was almost equal to that of
the French, American and Belgian forces combined.
G.H.Q. came to Montreuil because St. Omer, the old G.H.Q. town, was no
longer suitable as the centre for the vast operations pending. It had
served well enough when we formed the left wing of the French battle
line. Now we were to be the spear-head of the thrust against Germany.
Look back upon the little British Army of at first four and then five
Divisions, which in 1914 took rank alongside the French by Mons, and
fell back fighting until the rally of the Marne; and then upon the Army
of 1916 of ten times the strength, which was directed from Montreuil.
The growth shows as marvellous, and especially so to those who
understand how an army in the field is comparable to an iceberg at sea,
of which the greater part is unseen. For every rifleman in the trenches
and gunner in the gun-pits there are at least three other people working
to keep him supplied with food, clothing, ammunition, and on
communications. So an Army's growth demands a growth behind the line
three times as great as that in the line. And this growth is not merely
a matter of the multiplication of riflemen and gunners and auxiliaries,
a heaping up of men. It must be an organic growth to be effective at
all; an adding one by one of highly complex and yet homogeneous units.
A "Division" is the integral unit of any Army, and a Division must have
in the field its infantry battalions, cavalry or cyclist companies,
field batteries, signallers (with "wireless," telephone and telegraph
service), engineers, transport and supply services, medical and
ambulance services. All told, it numbered about 17,000 officers and men
at the close of the war, but in 1914 the strength of a Division was
nearer to 20,000. And this body of 20,000 was not a mob, nor a crowd,
nor yet even a simple organization such as a band of factory employees.
It was a nation in microcosm, its constituent numbers covering almost
the whole of the activities of life. It had to be organised to fight, to
keep up communications, to manufacture and repair, to feed itself and
its horses, to keep good health conditions in its camps and to succour
its sick and wounded. Besides fighting men it had doctors, vets.,
sanitary engineers, mechanics of all kinds, chemists, electricians.
Behind the line the Division's supports, its munition and clothing
factories, its food providers, had to be organised just as carefully.
Nothing can be made without making mistakes, and in the carrying out of
this giant task of making the Army of the British Empire there were many
mistakes of detail. It is in the nature of the human mind to see such
mistakes in high relief, as the human eye sees small patches of stone
stand out from a vast field of snow. But, making the worst that can be
made of the mistakes, if they are seen in proper perspective they cannot
blur the dazzling brilliance of a marvellous achievement.
Most of the mistakes, moreover, were direct consequences of that
innocence of warlike intention and that passion for human right and
liberty which was common to Great Britain as to the rest of Western
Europe, and on which, clearly, the German Powers had counted as
sufficient to paralyse effective resistance to their deliberate and
designed preparation. Hindering those good qualities of peacefulness
proved to be, but not paralysing. After all, the task was done. That
most dangerous first rush of German militarism was stayed. The powerful
beast was kept within bounds whilst weapons were forged for his
destruction. In vain were all his efforts, backed by the skill of half a
century of preparation and Spartan discipline.
* * * * *
Montreuil was chosen as G.H.Q. for a wide variety of reasons. It was on
a main road from London to Paris--the two chief centres of the
campaign--though not on a main railway line, which would have been an
inconvenience. It was not an industrial town and so avoided the
complications alike of noise and of a possibly troublesome civil
population.[1] It was from a telephone and motor transit point of view
in a very central situation to serve the needs of a Force which was
based on Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne, Dieppe, and Havre, and had its front
stretching from the Somme to beyond the Belgian frontier.
[Footnote 1: The population of Montreuil in 1906 was 2,883.]
A great general, asked to define in a phrase what was wanted for a
Headquarters, said "A central remoteness." It was urged that this seemed
an oxymoron. "Well then, if you like, a remote centrality." The finality
of that allowed of no further argument. Montreuil provided both a
central position and a position remote from the disturbances and
distractions of traffic, of a large population, of gay social interests.
The great Ecole Militaire offered accommodation for the chief offices.
There was sufficient billeting accommodation in the town houses and
the neighbouring chateaux.
[Illustration: THE 'CAVÉE' SAINT FIRMIN]
G.H.Q. of course was never a great camp. Its total military population
was never more than 5,000, including those G.H.Q. troops who were needed
for guards and who were drawn first from the Artists' Rifles, then from
the Honourable Artillery Company, then from the Newfoundland Regiment,
and finally from the Guernsey Regiment. Accommodation at Montreuil was
reinforced somewhat by hutments in 1917-18, but on the whole the town
was big enough for its purpose.