_Monday, April 1._--The battle of which I have been trying to give a
daily narrative has been on so vast a scale, filled with so many
episodes of terrific adventure and with so many hundreds of thousands of
men moving along its lines of fire that I find it impossible to give a
picture of the emotion and spirit of it. We out here, who knew this
thing was coming upon us, creeping nearer every day with its monstrous
menace, held our breath and waited. When at last the thing broke it was
more frightful in its loosing of overwhelming powers than even we had
guessed. Since then all our armies have lived with an intense
understanding of the greatness of these days, of their meaning to the
destiny of the world, and every private soldier, or transport driver, or
linesman, or laborer, has been exalted by an emotion stronger than the
effect of drugs.
In the wood of Moreuil this morning British cavalry performed a feat as
fine as the Balaklava charge, and this also should be made into a ballad
and learned by heart.
Twelve hundred men who had been riding through the night went forward in
three waves and charged that dark wood next morning at a hard gallop.
The first wave rode to the edge of the wood, and the second to the
centre, and the third wave went right through to the other side, riding
through the enemy and over his machine guns and in the face of a hail of
bullets from hidden machines. They cleared the wood of Moreuil and
brought back prisoners and thirteen machine guns, but there were many
empty saddles, and many men and horses fell.
That was the finest exploit of the British 'Cavalry, but elsewhere it
did splendid work, and everywhere the men were gallant and cool, as when
some of the dragoons came under a heavy shrapnel fire near Gentille, and
many men had to shoot their wounded horses to put them out of their
agony.