"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
Étaples 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."