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 rôle_, viz., the
engagement of tanks." "Its main rôle!" 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
_communiqués_, 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.
In the handling of the Coloured Labour Units there were naturally many
new and occasionally surprising things to be learnt by the British
soldiers directing them. A party of Nagas, for instance, were among
the Indian Labour Units. "They were savages from a country which has
only recently been brought thoroughly under British rule," writes an
officer of the A.G.'s department. "Their pastime is head-hunting, and
their 'uniform' when at home is that bestowed on them by Nature. They
were extraordinarily cheerful, willing workers, and gave no trouble at
all. The trouble of providing the special kind of food which in
general the natives of India require, was entirely absent in the case
of the Nagas. They have a strong liking for rats, and the only food
they object to is monkeys. A company of Nagas, about May, 1917, after
the advance at Arras in April, were sent up to somewhere near Boisleux
to bury dead horses. The dead horses were disposed of--but not by
burial. And in addition an Infantry Brigade in the neighbourhood had
soon to mourn the loss of all their dogs."
The Chinese were a constant source of amusement and interest to the
British. All that neatness and delicacy of finger which is shown in
Chinese art and hand-work, the infinite pains, the careful finish
which the Chinaman inherits from his age-long, patient past, were to
be seen even in the digging of trenches. Their defence lines were a
marvel of finish, in spite of the fact that in hard manual labour they
were ahead of any other unit--shifting, often, 240 cubic feet of soil
per day, per man. As porters, too, they were beyond rivalry; and their
contempt for the German prisoners' capacity in this direction was
amusing. A Chinese coolie, watching two prisoners handle a stack of
cased goods, could not at last contain himself. He walked up to them,
saying: "Hun no damn good," and proceeded to show them how it should
be done. The stolidity of the Chinaman is generally proof against
surprise, but some of those coming from the backwoods of Northern
China were occasionally bewildered and overwhelmed when set down amid
the amazing and to them terrifying wonders of the "back" of a European
Army. One company of such men arrived at their appointed camp, and the
next day there was a fight with enemy aeroplanes overhead. One of the
poor coolies was so terrified that he went and hanged himself, and the
rest could only be pacified with great difficulty. On the other hand,
a flying officer once offered a ride to a Chinese ganger who, with his
men, had been doing some work on an aerodrome for the R.A.F. "The
ganger went up with glee; and the pilot's feelings may be imagined
when, at a good height, he looked round and saw the ganger standing
up, as happy as could be, looking over the edge and pointing down to
the camp where his company lived, and other landmarks he was able to
recognise."
* * * * *
Of the noble army of women, who, since 1917, have formed part of that great
force behind the fighting lines I have been rapidly sketching--what shall
one say but good and grateful things?
In 1917, as our car wound through the narrow streets of Montreuil, I
remember noticing a yellow car in front of us, unlike the usual Army
car, and was told that it contained the new head of the Women's Army
Auxiliary Corps, and that 10,000 women were now to be drafted into
France, to take the place of men wanted for the fighting line. And a
little later at Abbeville I found General Asser, then Inspector-General
of the Lines of Communication, deep in the problems connected with the
housing and distribution of the new Women's Contingent. "Two women
want the accommodation of three men; but three women can only do the
work of two men." That seemed to be the root fact of the moment, and
accommodation and work were being calculated accordingly. Then the
women came, and took their place in the clerical staffs of the various
military departments, of Army or other Headquarters, in the Army
canteens, in the warehouses and depôts of the ports. It is clear that,
during the concluding year of the war, they rendered services of which
British women may reasonably be proud; and in the retreat of last
March, by universal testimony, they bore themselves with special
coolness and pluck. Many of them were suddenly involved in the rush
and confusion of battle, which was never meant to come near them. They
took the risks and bore the strain of it with admirable composure. The
men beside whom they marched or rode when depôts canteens, and
headquarters disappeared in the general over-running of our fighting
lines, took note! It was yet another page in that history of a new
Womanhood we are all collaborating in to-day. And I will add a last
touch, within my personal knowledge, when in January, at Montreuil, in
a room at G.H.Q., an officer of A. described to me how he had recently
interviewed a gathering of women belonging to Queen Mary's Auxiliary
Army Corps, and had asked them whether they wished to be immediately
demobilised. Almost without exception the answer came: "Not while we
can be useful to the Army." They had enlisted for the war; the war was
not over, in spite of the Armistice; and, though it would be pleasant
to go home, they still stuck to their job.
* * * * *
Thus hastily I have run through the labour of various kinds which was
the base and condition of the fighting force. I have left myself room
for only a few last words as to that Directing Intelligence which was
its brain and soul--_i.e._, the Staff work of the Army--from the
brilliant and distinguished men at General Headquarters immediately
surrounding the Commander-in-Chief, down to the Brigade and Battalion
Staffs, the members of which actually conduct the daily and nightly
operations of war from the close neighbourhood of the fighting line.
In a preceding chapter I have given a general outline of the duties
falling to the Staff of the First Army in the attack on the Hindenburg
line. The range and variety of them was immense. But their success, no
less than the success of the campaign as a whole, depended on the
faithful execution of all the minor Staff work of the Army, from the
battalion upward. The skill, precision and personal bravery required
from the officers concerned are not as much realised, I think, as they
ought to be by the public at home. An officer engaged as a
Brigade-Major in the fight on the Ancre, September, 1917, has written
me a detailed account of four days' experience in that battle,
involving the relief of one brigade by another, and a successful but
difficult attack, which gives a vivid idea of Staff work as carried on
in the actual fighting line itself. We see, first, the night journey
of the four infantry battalions and their machine-gun company and
trench-mortar battery, from Albert to Pozières by motor-bus, then the
four-mile march of the troops in darkness and rain along a duck-board
track, to the trenches they were to relieve. The Brigade-Major
describes the elaborate preparation needed for every movement of the
relief and the attack, and the anxiety in the Brigade Headquarters, a
dug-out twenty feet below the ground, when the telephone--which is
constantly cut by shell fire--fails to announce the arrival of each
company at its appointed place. Presently, the left company of the
battalion on the left is missing. In the darkness, and the congestion
of men moving up to and back from the trenches on the narrow track,
clearly something has gone wrong. The Brigade-Major sets out to
discover the why and wherefore. The attack is to start at 6 A.M., and
from 9 P.M. till nearly 5 A.M.--that is, _for close on eight hours_,
the Brigade-Major is up and down the track, inquiring into the causes
of delay--(a trench, for instance, has been blown in at one point, and
the men forced into the mud beside it)--watching and helping the
assembly of the troops, and "hunting" for the company which has not
arrived, and is "apparently lost." About five he returns to his
brigade, hoping for the best.
Then, half an hour before the moment appointed for the advance, "we
heard a bombardment starting. The enemy had either discovered the hour
of our attack, or were about to attack us." The Brigadier and his
Brigade-Major anxiously go up to the top of their dug-out to survey
the field. It is clear that the British line is being heavily
attacked. Messages begin to arrive from the battalion commander on the
left to say that all communication with his companies has now been
cut. The commander on the right also rings up to report heavy
casualties. Then the telephone wires on both sides are broken, and the
Staff signal officer goes out to repair them under fire. At last,
precisely at the moment appointed, five minutes past six, in the rainy
autumn dawn, our own guns--an enormous concentration of them--open a
tremendous fire, and the earth-shaking noise "helps men to forget
themselves, and go blind for the enemy." Then steadily the artillery
barrage goes forward, one hundred yards every four minutes, and the
infantry advance behind it, past the German front trench, to a ravine
about three hundred yards further, which is known to be strongly held.
The final objective is a strong German position protecting a village
in the valley of the Ancre.
Meanwhile, in the headquarters' dug-out, messages come pouring in "by
telephone, by lamp-signal, by wireless, by pigeon, by runners, and
reports dropped from aeroplanes." The progress of the battle is marked
on the maps spread out on a table in the dug-out, and the Brigadier
has to decide when his reserve battalion must be sent forward to
assist. Information is scanty and contradictory, but "at half-hourly
intervals the situation, as we believed it to be, was telephoned to
our Divisional Headquarters and to the brigades on either flank."
Reports come in of success at certain places and a check at others;
also of a German counter-attack. All reports agree that casualties
have been heavy. The ravine, indeed, has been taken with seven hundred
prisoners, but the situation is still so obscure that "the Brigadier
sent me out to find out the real situation."
"So I started out with an orderly." The direct route to be taken was
under fire and had to be circumvented. "I was making for an old
dug-out in a small ravine, where some men of our left attacking
battalion had suffered heavily whilst assembling prior to the attack.
The area was still being shelled, and we made a bolt for the dug-out,
which we reached safely." In the dug-out is the commander of the
support battalion, who reports that the commanders of the attacking
battalions have gone forward to the big ravine. "I found out all I
could from him, and then went forward with him to the ravine." On the
way the Staff officer notices that the wire entanglements in front of
the German trenches are still formidable and have not been properly
cut by our artillery. "When we reached the big ravine we crawled down
the steep bank to the bottom of it, and the first sight that we saw
was the entrance to a German dug-out, with its previous occupants
lying at the mouth of it.... I then found the commander of the left
attacking battalion, who had established his headquarters in an old
German dug-out." From him the Brigade-Major hears a ghastly tale of
casualties. Not a single officer left, with any of his four attacking
companies! Yet in spite of the loss of all their company officers, and
of the fact that the left company of the battalion had been
practically wiped out before the attack started, the greater portion
of the battalion, led by their regimental sergeant-major, had reached
their final objective.... "It was certainly," says the Brigade-Major
quietly, "a very magnificent performance."
Meanwhile he finds the commander of the right battalion further up the
ravine. The greater portion of the support battalion is also in the
ravine. Here there were elements of three battalions, considerably
disorganised, suffering from want of sleep and a terribly hard time.
The commanders, dead beat, want reinforcements, and take a pessimist
view. The Brigade-Major, coming fresh, thinks, on the contrary, that
there are already too many men on the ground, who only want
reorganising. To satisfy himself he goes forward, with the adjutant of
the right battalion, to find out "exactly where our leading troops
were and in what condition."
"I satisfied myself of the exact situation, and having visited the
troops of the brigades on both flanks, went back to the ravine,
and from one of the battalion headquarters telephoned to my
Brigadier and told him what I had found out. I mentioned that both
the battalion commanders said they needed more troops to reinforce
them, but added that in my opinion there were already sufficient
troops on the spot, and that all that was necessary was that they
should be placed under the command of one officer, and reorganised
by battalions, to hold their present positions. I told him
everything I knew, and tried to give him a good idea of the
condition of the troops on the spot. He then sent orders to me
that the senior battalion commander was to assume command of all
troops on the brigade front, and that under his orders they were
to be reorganised into battalions and companies, in order that the
defence should be as strong and efficient as possible. I then
returned to Brigade Headquarters to tell my Brigadier more fully
what I had seen."
The following night the brigade was relieved, after what was on the
whole a very successful action. All the officers responsible for its
Staff work seem to have been on duty, without rest or sleep, for some
thirty-six hours, and after the attack was over there were still
German prisoners to be examined.
Such is Staff work in the actual battle-line. What it needs of will,
courage, and endurance will be clear, I think, to anyone reading this
account, and the experience may be taken as typical of thousands like
it at every stage of the war, so long as it was a war of trenches and
positions. And what is also typical is that while the personal risks
of the writer are scarcely hinted at, his mind, amid all his cares of
superintendence and organisation, is still passionately alive to the
individual risks and sufferings of his comrades. He ends on what he
calls "another small point which deserves mention":
"When the officers and men of those two attacking battalions lay
in the mud on that pitch-black night, soaked to the skin and
shivering with cold, as they lay there waiting for the awful hour
when it seems as if horror itself has been let loose, and as they
wondered in their own minds what lay before them, gradually the
German bombardment started, and then by degrees increased in
intensity, until for fully thirty minutes before zero hour it
became perfect hell. Every one of those officers and men, without
a doubt, realised that the enemy had discovered that he was going
to be attacked, and that he would be on the alert and waiting for
them. Yet did any one of them falter, did any one of them for a
single moment dream of not starting with the rest of his comrades
and doing what he knew it was his duty to do?"
"I only know two things: Firstly, that a very great number of
them, if not all, realised only too well that the enemy had
discovered our plans; and, secondly, that the only ones who did
not start were those who could not, because they had been either
killed or wounded."
And now turn with me to the top of all--the General Staff of the Army
in France--the brain of the whole mighty movement. It was with no
light emotion that I found myself last January, on a bitter winter
day, among a labyrinth of small rooms running round the quadrangle of
the old Ecole Militaire at Montreuil, while they were still full of
Staff officers gathering up the records of the war. Here, or in the
Staff train moving with the Commander-in-Chief along the front, the
vast organisation of battle culminated in a few guiding brains from
which energising and unifying direction flowed out to all parts of the
field of war. Here were the heads of Q., of A., of G.--in other words,
of Supply, Reinforcement, and Operations. In a bare room, with a few
chairs and tables and an iron stove, the Director of Operations was at
work; close by was the office of the Quartermaster-General, while up
another staircase and along another narrow passage were the quarters
of the Adjutant-General; and somewhere, I suppose, in the now historic
building, was or had been the office of the Commander-in-Chief
himself. The Intelligence Department was not far off, I knew, in the
old town; I had been its grateful guest in 1917. The directing
Intelligence of the Army flowed out from here to the front, while from
the front, at the same time, there came back a constant stream of
practical knowledge and experience, keeping the life of G.H.Q.
perpetually fresh, correcting theory by experience and kindling
experience by theory. The complexities and responsibilities of the
work done were vast indeed.
"At any time," says an officer of the General Staff, "during the
operations of the past year, work was commenced here in the
office, or on the train, when G.H.Q. was advanced nearer the
battle-line, at any hour before nine o'clock. The work to be done
consists, in general terms, of co-ordinating all the arrangements
for the operations undertaken and carried out by the several
armies; the issuing of general orders and instructions for
operations, the details of which were worked out by the armies
concerned; the issuing of orders for the movement of divisions, of
artillery units, cavalry, and Tanks--in fact, all the different
services which go to make up the Army. These orders must be so
arranged as to fit in with the roads and railway facilities, or
the mechanical transport available, and must be so couched as not
to interfere or clash with arrangements made by the armies in the
Army areas. This necessitates very intimate _liaison_ with the
armies and with the departments concerned. Maps have to be kept up
to date, showing the dispositions of troops at all times, both on
the battle-front and in back areas.
"In addition, there are the arrangements with our Allies, the
fixing of areas between ourselves and our Allies, and between our
own armies and the lines of communication. During operations
messages have to be sent out giving information of the situation
to the troops, to the public, and to the War Office at home.
Schemes are worked out beforehand to deal with any possible
eventuality, so that in the event of a hostile attack the movement
of troops may be carried out with the least possible delay.
Similar schemes are worked out for operations to be undertaken by
ourselves, and methods of attack are thrashed out in consultation
with the Army Commanders and Staff. The various details of this
work fill in the day very thoroughly. This office (of Operations)
rarely closes before midnight, and the principal officers are
frequently at work until the small hours of the morning. There is,
of course, an officer on duty all night.
"During the German attack in March the officer responsible here
for the movement of troops by rail did not leave the office even
for meals for a number of days on end."
So the long ascent climbs, from the humblest platoon in the field,
through company, battalion, division, corps, and Army to the General
Staff, and the British Commander-in-Chief, moving and directing the
whole; with beyond these, again, as the apex of the great
construction, the figure of the illustrious Frenchman, who for the
last six months of the war, by the common consent of the Allies, and
especially by the free will of England and her soldiers, held the
general scheme of battle in his hands. In the British Army what we
have been watching is an active hierarchy of duty, discipline,
loyalty, intelligence--the creation of a whole people, bent on victory
for a great cause. Must it, indeed, vanish with the war, like a dream
at cock-crow, or shall we yet see its marvellous training, its
developments of mind and character, gradually take other shapes and
enter into other combinations--for the saving and not the slaying of
men?
EPILOGUE
_June 1st._
I have thus brought these rapid notes--partly of things seen, partly
of things read--to an end. They might, of course, go on for ever, and
as I write I seem to see rising before me those libraries of the
future, into which will come crowding the vast throng of books dealing
in ever greater and greater detail with the events of the war and the
causes of victory. But this slight summary sketch of the military
events, and especially of the final "effort" of England and the
Empire, in the campaign of last year, which I set myself to do, is
accomplished, however inadequately. Except, indeed, for one huge
omission which every reader of these few pages will at once suggest. I
have made only a few references here and there to the British Navy.
Yet on the British Navy, as we all know, everything hung. If the Navy
could not have protected our shores, and broken the submarine peril;
if the British Admiralty had not been able to hold the Channel against
the enemy and ward him off from the coasts and ports of France; if the
British ships and British destroyers had not been there to bring over
70 per cent of the American Armies, and food both for ourselves and
the Allies; if the sea-routes between us and our Colonies, between us
and the East, could not have been maintained, Germany at this moment
would have been ruling triumphant over a prostrate world. The
existence and power of the Navy have been as vital to us as the air we
breathed and the sun which kept us alive, and the pressure of the
British blockade was, perhaps, the dominating element in the victory
of the Allies. But these things are so great and so evident that it
seemed in this little book best to take them for granted. They have
been the presuppositions of all the rest. What has not yet been so
clear--or so I venture to think--to our own people or our Allies, has
been the full glory of the part played by the Armies of the British
Empire in the concluding phases of the war. The temporary success of
the German sortie of last spring--a mere episode in the great
whole--made so deep an impression on the mind of this nation, that the
real facts of an _annus mirabilis_, in their true order and
proportion, are only now, perhaps, becoming plain to us. It was in
order to help ever so little in this process that I have tried to
tell, as it appears to me, the end of that marvellous story of which I
sketched the beginnings in _England's Effort_.
These main facts, it seems to me, can hardly be challenged by any
future pressure from that vast critical process which the next
generation, and generations after, will bring to bear upon the war.
The mistakes made, the blunders here, or shortcomings there, of
England's mighty effort, will be all canvassed and exposed soon
enough. The process indeed has already begun. And when the first mood
of thankful relief from the constant pre-occupation of the war is
over, we may expect to see it in full blast. It would have been easy
here to repeat some of the current discontents of the day, all of
which will have their legitimate hearing in future discussion. But
this is not the moment, nor is mine the pen. We are but just emerging
from the shadow of that peril from which the British and Imperial
Armies--bone of our bone and flesh or our flesh--have saved us. Let us
now, if ever, praise the "famous men" of the war, and gather into our
hearts the daily efforts, the countless sacrifices of countless
thousands, in virtue of which we now live our quiet lives.
Nor have I dwelt much upon the terrible background of the whole scene,
the physical horror, the anguish and suffering of war. Our noblest
dead, to judge from the most impassioned and inspired utterances of
the men who have suffered for us, would bid us indeed remember these
things,--remember them with all the intensity of which we are
capable--but with few words. They never counted the cost, though they
knew it well; and what they set out to do, they have done.
Let us then, at this particular moment, dwell, above all, on _the
thing achieved_. To that end, a few colossal figures must still be
added to those already given. Since the beginning of the war, the
total forces employed by the British Empire in the various theatres of
war, have amounted to a total of _eight million, six hundred and
fifty-four thousand_ (24 per cent of the total white male population),
of which the United Kingdom supplied 5,704,416 (25.36 per cent), and
the Dominions, and Colonies, 1,425,864. The Indian and Coloured troops
amounted to 1,524,000. If the Navy, the Merchant Service, and the men
and women employed in various auxiliary military services at home are
added, the total recruiting effort of the Empire reaches to much more
than _ten millions_.
As to the financial part of this country in the war, by March 22nd,
1919, the war expenditure of Great Britain had reached a total of
£9,482,442,482, of which rather more than _two thousand five hundred
millions_ have been raised by taxation. Included in this total are
sums amounting to £1,683,500,000, lent to our Allies and Dominions.
For the total casualties of the war, in an earlier chapter I have
given the approximate figures so far as they can as yet be
ascertained, amounting to at least some _twenty millions_. At such
appalling cost then, in death, suffering and that wealth which
represents the accumulated labour of men, have the liberties of Europe
been rescued from the German attack. We are victors indeed; we have
won to the shore; but the wreck of the tempest lies all round us; and
what is the future to be?
It is four months now, since, in the splendid rooms of the Villa
Murat, I listened to President Wilson describing the sitting of the
Conference at which the Resolution was passed constituting the League
of Nations--four months big with human fate. The terms of peace are
published, and at the present moment no one knows whether Germany will
sign them or no. The League of Nations is in existence. It has a home,
a Constitution, a Secretariat. But the outlook over Europe is still
dark and troubled, and the inner League of Three is still the surest
ground in the chaos, the starting-point of the future. The Peace Terms
are no final solution--how could they be? On their practical
execution, on their adaptation year by year to the new world coming
into being, all will depend. German militarism has met its doom. The
triumph of the Allies is more absolute than any of them could have
dreamed four years ago. Nor can the German crime ever be forgotten in
this generation, or the German peril ignored. The whole civilised
world must be--will be--the shield of France should any fresh outrage
threaten her. But after justice comes mercy. Because Germany has shown
herself a criminal nation, not all Germans are criminal. That same
British Army which as it fought its victorious way through the German
defences in the last four months of the war, and, while it fought the
enemy, fed and succoured at the same time 800,000 French
civilians--men and officers dividing their rations with starving women
and children, and in every pause of fighting, spending all their
energies in comforting the weak, the hungry, and the sick:--that very
Army is sorry now for the German women and children, as it sees them
in the German towns. It is our own soldiers who have been demanding
food and pity.
The Allies, indeed, have been for some time sending food to their
starving enemies. Mr. Hoover--all honour to the great man!--is
ceaselessly at work. If only no hitch in the Peace interrupts the
food-trains and the incoming ships, so that no more children die!
Some modifications in the Peace Terms would, clearly, be accepted by
the public opinion of the Allied countries. No one, I believe, who has
seen the Lens district, and the deliberate and cruel destruction of
the French industrial north, will feel many qualms about the Saar
valley. We may hold a personal opinion that it might have been wiser
for France in her own interests to claim the coal only. But it is for
France to decide, and it will be for the League of Nations to watch
over the solution she has insisted on, in the common interest. But
concessions as to Upper Silesia and East Prussia would be received, I
have little doubt, with general relief and assent; and the common
sense of Europe will certainly see both the wisdom and expediency of
setting German industry to work again as speedily as possible, and of
so arranging and facilitating the payment of her huge money debt to
the Allies that it should not weigh too intolerably on the life of an
unborn generation--an innocent generation, who will grow up, as it is,
inevitably, under one of the darkest shadows ever cast by history.
Meanwhile now that the just and stern verdict of Europe has been given
on the war and its authors, the second and greater half of the Allied
task remains. Vast questions are left to the League of Nations,
outside the Peace; the re-settlement, politically, of large tracts of
Europe; the whole problem of disarmament, involving the future of
British and American sea-power; the responsibilities of America in
Europe; the economic adjustment of the world. But perhaps the greatest
problem of all is the ethical one. How long shall we keep our wrath?
Germany has done things in this war which shame civilisation, and seem
to make a mockery of all ideas of human progress. But yet!--we must
still believe in them; or the sun will go out in heaven. We must still
believe that in the long run hatred kills the civilised mind, and to
put it at its lowest, is a mortal waste of human energies. Has
Christianity, swathed as it is in half-decayed beliefs, any longer
power to help us? Yet whatever else in the Christian system is
breaking down, the Christian idea of a common fellowship of man holds
the field as never before. And both the Christian idea and common
sense tell us that till there is again some sort of international life
in Europe, Europe will be unsound and her wounds unhealed. We call it
impossible. But the good man, the just man, the merciful man is still
among us, and--
"What he wills, he does; and does so much
That proof is called impossibility."
MARY A. WARD.
APPENDIX[14]
A CHART OR DIAGRAM OF THE WAR PROM JANUARY, 1916, TO THE ARMISTICE,
WITH AN EXPLANATION
[14] As I have already stated, in a footnote, I owe permission to
publish this small reproduction of an interesting and unique
document to the kindness of Lieut.-General the Hon. Sir Herbert
Lawrence, K.C.B., etc., Chief of the General Staff.
APPENDIX
EXPLANATION OF CHART[15]
[15] [My readers will be as grateful as I am to Captain W.O. Barton,
lately at work at G.H.Q., for this vivid explanation of the Chart.]
THE CHART.--This Chart is a small scale reproduction of one used and
corrected from day to day at British G.H.Q. in France. It shows
graphically the actual position at any given date of the British
forces in FIGHTING STRENGTH, FRONT HELD, and HEAVY GUN POWER: when big
operations are in progress it gives at a glance the number of CASUALTIES
incurred and PRISONERS taken, perhaps the surest indication of the
measure of success gained. Owing to the size of the reproduction, the
horizontal scale lines of the original Chart cannot be given. To
calculate a number at any particular date from the Chart as reproduced,
it is only necessary to measure with a rule the height of the desired
line at the given date. Reference to the appropriate numerical scale at
the side will then give the number.
1916, STRENGTH AND FRONT.--Begin with the FRONT and FIGHTING STRENGTH
lines. The _Strength_ line tells the Commander his actual numbers (by
reference to scale 2), but he needs more. He looks at the line
representing _Front_ and marks the proportion it bears to _Fighting
Strength_. Measure these lines in mid-June, 1916. Since January, FRONT
(scale 1) has expanded by about one-fifth--from 67 to 90 miles. The
Chart shows the reason. But meanwhile _Fighting Strength_, then the
vital factor for attack, has risen from 470,000 to 680,000, nearly
one-half. The Army has been built up by new Divisions for the great
Somme offensive.
CASUALTIES.--The battle opens. The red line of casualties leaps into
prominence and, with its ascent, STRENGTH falls. Reinforcements are
needed. They arrive to replace casualties, and STRENGTH goes up again.
So through the long conflict these lines act and react. Ground is won,
but hardly and at great cost: the ascent of the Front line is slow.
PRISONERS.--What are the enemy losses? How are his men fighting? The
PRISONERS line (scale 5) tells best. Gradually the proportion of
prisoners to (British) casualties increases: his casualties are
growing, his resistance becoming less effective: the wearing-out
process tells. Mark the concluding phases of the Somme battle. The
PRISONERS line is nearer to that of casualties. The Tank has been
introduced, and here is ocular evidence of its effectiveness. More
tanks is one of the lessons of the lines.
1917, ARRAS.--The Somme fighting ends. Again our armies are built up,
until the 760,000 point is reached. FRONT, increased to nearly 120
miles by a relief of French troops, falls again to 105, owing to the
German retirement about ARRAS. Heavy guns have increased from just
over 300 to 1,500. Again our armies are ready, and the Battle of ARRAS
opens the ALLIED SPRING OFFENSIVE. It is immediately effective, for
casualties never reach the same height as in the Somme, and prisoners
are much more numerous. The lines for the two battles show the
difference vividly. But mark the big curve downward of the STRENGTH
line. Casualties are now not so easily replaced.
MESSINES, YPRES, PASSCHENDAELE.--Before STRENGTH is fully restored the
Messines ridge is rent with mines (June 7th) and taken. July is
devoted to preparation: STRENGTH reaches its zenith, guns still
increase, and on July 31st the Battle of YPRES opens the great
northern offensive. Fighting is bitter, and more costly than at Arras;
CASUALTIES are at first high in relation to prisoners, but the
PRISONERS line, as in the Somme, but more consistently, tends upward.
The German is not "sticking" the terrible conditions and fierce
fighting so well as the Britisher.
CAMBRAI.--Then, in December, comes our surprise attack at Cambrai: it
is effective, for PRISONERS nearly approaches CASUALTIES. LINE
increases, owing to the salient formed by the British advance. Then,
the _German_ counter-attack, with CASUALTIES high, PRISONERS few, and
LINE decreasing. The Germans have reduced the salient made by our
attack.
ITALY'S PLIGHT.--But meanwhile, the enemy has struck at Italy, and
Italy, reeling under his blows, is clamant for aid. Division after
Division hurries off! STRENGTH falls, never again to ascend. The
handicap is permanent.
1918. With STRENGTH almost at its lowest since 1916, after a year of
ceaseless fighting and heavy casualties, with five Divisions diverted
to Italy, miles of FRONT have to be taken over from the French. Line
held reaches its maximum, 130 miles. _Fighting strength_ has fallen by
mid-March--when Divisions have been reorganised from 12 to 9
battalions, owing to the dwindling of reinforcements--to 580,000.
THE GERMAN THRUSTS.--The Chart has shown when we might attack. Now it
gives the warning to expect attack. Now, if ever, is Germany's moment,
and her first great blow falls on March 21st--the thrust at Amiens.
CASUALTIES soar to a height never before approached. The red line
predominates--STRENGTH falls and falls. Divisions are summoned from
Italy and Egypt. The second German blow falls on the Lys. CASUALTIES
are again immense, though not so high as in the first attack. STRENGTH
falls again. The Lys salient increases the line held, but by the end
of May the Line is firm throughout. Some few thousand Americans for a
time reinforce the war-weary British Divisions; but the Portuguese
cease to be reckoned in our _fighting strength_, though still in
France. Reorganisation follows. STRENGTH is built up a little, though
CASUALTIES are still heavy. The IXth Corps is fighting fiercely on the
French Front to stem the Paris Thrust in May, and four British
Divisions help in Foch's July counter-thrust. Guns, despite our losses
to the enemy, have again increased. Guns are now more easily replaced
than men.
THE FINAL PHASES.--Then the final phase. With decreased FIGHTING
STRENGTH but with abundant GUNS (and, be it added, Tanks), we strike
our first great blow in the Battle of Amiens on August 8th. STRENGTH
falls abruptly, CASUALTIES are many, but high above the casualty line
soars--for the first time--the line of PRISONERS. The toll taken of
the German armies increases, as Bapaume and the Scarpe swiftly follow
Amiens.
THE VITAL LINE.--Now the PRISONERS line has become vital. Consider the
position in December before what is, perhaps, the decisive battle of
the world war, the breaking of the Hindenburg line. GUNS are ever
increasing, LINE has fallen somewhat, but lower even than in the dark
days of spring has fallen the line of FIGHTING STRENGTH. To the
General, studying this line alone, attack upon a position vaunted as
impregnable would seem sheer madness. But he sees the Chart as a
whole, with the PRISONERS line dominating everything in its sustained
height. The enemy's total casualties are incalculable; never have ours
been so few in comparison with prisoners taken: the hammering of
previous years has borne fruit: the German _morale_, such is the
lesson of the line, has gone irretrievably.
THE GREAT DECISION.--So, despite his own weakness, despite heavy
losses not made good, the Commander takes the great decision and
stakes all. He strikes, lets loose the tempest of his guns, and his
infantry, diminished but indomitable, sweep through the vast
fortresses of the Hindenburg line, hurl the enemy from defence after
defence, pass from victory to victory.
Such is the story of the Chart.