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Title: G. H. Q.
(Montreuil-Sur-Mer)
Author: Frank Fox
G.S.O.
Release Date: September 5, 2013 [EBook #43644]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK G. H. Q. ***
Produced by Bruce Albrecht, Max Jackson and the Online
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G. H. Q.
(MONTREUIL-SUR-MER).
[Illustration]
G. H. Q.
(MONTREUIL-SUR-MER)
BY
"G. S. O."
WITH A MAP AND THIRTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS.
[Illustration]
LONDON:
PHILIP ALLAN & CO.,
QUALITY COURT, CHANCERY LANE, W.C.
1920.
PRINTED BY
WHITEHEAD BROS., WOLVERHAMPTON.
TO
THE PEOPLE AT HOME
WHOSE UNBENDING RESOLUTION
AND UNGRUDGING GENEROSITY
UPHELD THE SOLDIERS' CONFIDENCE
THIS BOOK IS GRATEFULLY
DEDICATED BY THE
AUTHOR.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--BEFORE G.H.Q. WENT TO MONTREUIL 1
The first stages of the War--"Trench War," a good
German invention--The Battle of Eyes--Waiting for
the Big Push--The Loos disappointment--Moving G.H.Q.
to Montreuil.
II.--MONTREUIL AND THE MONTREUILLOIS 16
How the Montreuillois once learned to hate the
English--Early history of the famous town--Its link
with the early Roman-British Empire--A border town
in the Anglo-French Wars--When G.H.Q. was bombed.
III.--G.H.Q. AT WORK 29
The Functions of G.H.Q.--The varying conditions to
be met--The working hours--The organisation of a
branch--The Chief's system.
IV.--G.H.Q. AT PLAY 47
The walks on the Ramparts--The "Monks" of Montreuil
had little time for sport--Precautions against
"joy-riding"--The jolly Officers' Club--Watching the
Map--Ladies at G.H.Q.
V.--THE MUNITIONS OF THE WAR 66
The Shell shortage--When relief came--The dramatic
Tanks--Bombs--Some ammunition figures--The ingenious
inventor.
VI.--THE MEDICAL SERVICES 80
The magic-workers of the war--Fighting the
Germans--Concerning the Victorian primness of
conversation and the present popularity of "v.d." as
a theme for small talk--The Army and "v.d."--The
etiquette of hospitals and the ways of matrons--The
war against Trench Feet--Mustard gas in 1918.
VII.--THE ANIMALS OF THE FORCE 98
A happy lot--The mud season in Flanders--The effects
of mustard gas--The character of the mule--Forage
difficulties--The French object to our horse
ration--The Americans side with us--The animal
record in 1918.
VIII.--THE FINANCIAL SERVICES 116
The generosity of the British People--G.H.Q. was not
a spendthrift--The Pay system--Curiosities of
banking in the field--Claims of the civilian
inhabitants--The looted rabbit.
IX.--THE ECONOMY SERVICES 129
What the German submarines taught us--The Salvage
Organisation--O.C. Rags, Bones and
Swill--Agriculture's good work and hard luck--The
Forestry Directorate--Soldiers learn economy in a
stern school.
X.--THE COMFORTS OF THE FORCE--SPIRITUAL AND OTHER 144
The Padres--The semi-religious organisations--E.F.C.
Comforts--Studying the Fighting man--The Great Beer
Save.
XI.--THE LABOUR AUXILIARIES 155
The queer ways of the Chinks--How to bury a Chinaman
properly--The Q.M.A.A.C.s and their fine
record--Other types of Labour auxiliaries--The
Labour Directorate.
XII.--G.H.Q. AND THE "NEW ARMY" 169
What G.H.Q. thought of the "Temporaries"--Old
prejudices and their reason--The material of the
"New Armies"--Some "New Army" Officers who did not
play the game--The Regular Army Trade Union accepts
its "dilutees."
XIII.--G.H.Q. AND THE DOMINION ARMIES 183
Our Parliament at the Club--A discussion of the
Dominions, particularly of Australia--Is the
Englishman shy or stand-offish?--How the "Anzacs"
came to be--The Empire after the War.
XIV.--EDUCATING THE ARMY 197
The beginning of an interesting movement--The work
of a few enthusiasts--The unexpected peace--Humours
of lectures to the Army--Books for the Army--The
Army Printery.
XV.--THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT 209
The disappointments of 1916 and 1917--The collapse
of Russia--The Cambrai Battle--The German
propaganda--Fears of irresolution at
Home--Reassurances from Home--Effects of the
Submarine war--An economical reorganisation at
G.H.Q.--A new Quartermaster General--Good effects of
cheerfulness at Home.
XVI.--ENTER THE AMERICANS 235
How the Germans were misled about the
Americans--Early American fighters--The arrivals in
May, 1918--American equipment--Our relations with
the Americans and what they thought of us--The
Portuguese.
XVII.--THE GERMAN SPRING OF 1918 254
Was G.H.Q. at fault?--Where we could best afford to
lose ground--Refugees complicate the
situation--Stark resolution of the French--All
Pas-de-Calais to be wrecked if necessary--How our
railways broke down--Amiens does not fall.
XVIII.--THE MOTOR LORRY THAT WAITED 272
How a motor lorry waited at the Ecole Militaire to
take away the maps to the Coast--The Motor Lorry
Reserve--An "appreciation" of the position--Germany
lost the War in the first three months--Some notes
of German blunders.
XIX.--THE UNITY OF COMMAND 283
Was it necessary?--Was a French Generalissimo
inevitable?--Our share in the guiding of the last
phase of the campaign--Points on which the British
had their way.
XX.--THE COMING OF VICTORY 293
The June Position--German attempts to pinch out our
lines of supplies--The attacks on hospitals--The
glorious last 14 weeks--G.H.Q.'s share.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
TO FACE PAGE
THE CHIEF _Frontispiece_
THE BOULOGNE GATE 1
THE CAVÉE SAINT FIRMIN 14
OUTSIDE THE RAMPARTS 20
THE MARKET 26
LT.-GEN. THE HON. SIR H. A. LAWRENCE 30
LT.-GEN. SIR G. H. FOWKE 38
THE GRANDE PLACE 42
THE RAMPARTS 48
THE THEATRE 50
IN THE OFFICERS' CLUB 54
THE PLACE GAMBETTA 60
THE FOSSE 72
A BY-WAY 80
A ROYAL VISIT: DECEMBER, 1918 90
THE EAST RAMPARTS 102
THE ARMY COMMANDERS 110
MAJOR-GEN. SIR C. A. BRAY 122
MAJOR-GEN. L. B. FRIEND 126
AN ARMY POSTER 132
BRIG.-GEN. THE EARL OF RADNOR 136
AT FORESTRY H.Q. 140
BRIG.-GEN. E. G. WACE 168
THE BOULOGNE GATE (FROM THE TOWN) 182
MAJOR-GEN. C. BONHAM-CARTER 198
LIEUT.-COL. D. BORDEN TURNER 202
CAPTAIN H. P. HANSELL 204
ON THE RAMPARTS 210
LIEUT.-GEN. SIR TRAVERS CLARKE 226
THE ECOLE MILITAIRE 272
AT THE CHIEF'S CHATEAU 284
"SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE" 292
MAP AT END
FOREWORD.
That fantastic life at G.H.Q., so greatly detached from the normal--the
life of the men whose words had power to send Armies into and out of
action, to give this Division rest and surcease from the agony of the
struggle, to assign to that Division the stress of a new effort; the men
into whose hands the nation poured millions without stint and at whose
call the whole world moved to spin or dig or forge--will it be of
interest now to recall some of its memories, to attempt an intimate
picture of its routine?
Fantastic the life was truly. One man of imagination, who had done his
work in the line so well as to win a reputation for great courage and
administrative ability, and had carried through with a quiet skill and a
simple dutifulness the responsibilities of the "small family" of a
regiment, found, when he was transferred to G.H.Q., that the sense of
responsibility was too great for his temperament. He was not a very
important cog of the machine. But the feeling that the motion which his
hand started set going so great a series of actions got on his nerves
to the extent that he could neither sleep nor eat with comfort, nor
decide the simplest matter without torturing doubt as to whether it were
right or wrong. He "moved on" within a few days.
Fortunately that sense of vision was rare. The average man was content
to "carry on" with his task with what good judgment Heaven gave him,
deciding as the established routine, or the common-sense shift of a new
emergency, dictated.
But looking back, reflecting on all the woeful results that might have
sprung from a careless blunder, from too great haste, from too
deliberate hesitation, from over fear or over confidence, it is to be
seen how fantastic, how abnormal was the life centred in that little
walled town of Montreuil, the focus of a spider's web of wires, at one
end of which were the soldiers in their trenches, at the other the
workers of the world at their benches. Yet we ate, drank, slept, played
a little and talked, very much as if we were workers in some commercial
house, directing coffee from a plantation to a warehouse and then to a
breakfast table, instead of dealing in blood and tears, drawing without
stint on human life and human hope so that the idea of Right and Liberty
might be saved in the world.
It is well that Imagination went to sleep, or was lacking. For so the
work could be done and the war directed to its safe conclusion. But a
record of the life we lived seems now, in retrospect, almost indecorous.
It is as if we should not have munched food, talked trivialities, while
before our eyes and under our hands was played out the greatest tragedy
Man has known; as if it would have been more fitting if we had gone from
uneasy couches, tight-lipped and anxious, to our desks, haunted always
by a sense of doom.
It was not like that. And, such as it was, I attempt to record it--a
serious enough life in any sense of the word, monkish in its denial of
some pleasures, rigid in discipline, exacting in work, but neither
austere nor anxious--such a life as studious boys might live in a Public
School, if there can be imagined a Public School in which sport was
reduced to the minimum essential to keep one fit for hard "swotting."
But a life with some relaxations, and some pleasures, cheerful, actually
light-hearted.
Questions of the conduct of the war must obtrude somewhat in this book,
but it will be only in so much as they are a necessary background to the
story of the life of G.H.Q.--of G.H.Q. in its later phase when it had
moved from St. Omer to Montreuil and had become what it was in the final
result, a capable Board of Directors of as glorious a company of
soldiers as the world has known. There will be no attempt at a history
of the war, no battle pictures, which are usually vain efforts to
measure the immeasurable. Yet it is hoped that the reader will get from
it some idea of the character and the complexities of the struggle.
Already fogs of controversy are obscuring many of the facts of the war.
There is a controversy whether the first Commander-in-Chief should have
been recalled when he was; about the merits of the second
Commander-in-Chief; about the "unity of command" decision; about the
relative merits of a strategy which would concentrate everything for a
supreme effort in France and a strategy which would seek a "back door"
to the German citadel; about the actual cause and duration of the shell
shortage. In accordance with our British custom we are mostly taking
sides, following some leader and putting our faith in his views, and all
his views, implicitly. Thus are formed parties. I claim with honesty,
and perhaps with correctness, not to belong to any of the parties. I
have set down these observations on G.H.Q. without a thought of whether
they may support this view or that view on the conduct of the war.
THE AUTHOR.
[Illustration: THE BOULOGNE GATE]
CHAPTER I.
BEFORE G.H.Q. WENT TO MONTREUIL.
The first stages of the War--"Trench War," a good German invention--The
Battle of Eyes--Waiting for the Big Push--The Loos disappointment--Moving
G.H.Q. to Montreuil.
It was the task of General Headquarters to try to see the War as a
whole, to obtain a knowledge not only of the strictly military situation
but, to an extent, also of the moral and the political situation of the
enemy and of our own forces. In the later stages of the campaign that
task was being done, _pace_ all the critics, with an efficiency that was
wonderful, seeing that before the Great War the British nation did not
allow its Army any chance at all of war practice on a big scale. Our
Generals, whatever skill they might have won in studying the theory of
war, had had no opportunity to practise big movements. They were very
much in the position of men trained in the running of a small provincial
store who were asked suddenly to undertake the conduct of one of the
mammoth "universal providers."
It is of G.H.Q. in the later stages of the war that I write, not G.H.Q.
of the earlier stages, when our Army was finding its feet. But a slight
generalisation regarding those earlier stages is necessary to an
understanding of the subsequent growth of the Army organisation and of
its Board of Directors at G.H.Q.
The small Army which crossed to France in 1914 was organised as an
Expeditionary Force for a war of movement. It did gallant work in the
first phase, as all have admitted. When the war of movement stopped and
the struggle settled down to the War of the Trenches, though that gave a
good opportunity of recruiting, it brought up an entirely new set of
problems, for which our organisation had made no provision at all and in
which British natural gifts did not have the best chance of display.
Indeed our training system at home refused in 1914-15 to "recognise"
Trench War. The New Armies were trained on the same lines as the old
Regular Army, but of course more hurriedly, more intensively, less
efficiently. They learned Trench Warfare--an almost entirely different
game--when they got out to the Front. A reversal of the process--to have
taught the much simpler Trench Warfare in the home camps and left the
teaching of movement warfare to training intervals in France--was an
obviously more economical system, and it was that adopted at a later
stage.
When a considered history of the war comes to be written, probably it
will give to the German High Command high praise for this period of
"Trench War." It was the one conspicuously good invention of the enemy.
It enabled him almost completely to stop the war in the one theatre
where he had to meet troops superior to his own, whilst his forces
ranged round Europe winning cheap victories and finally (though too late
as it proved) vanquishing opposition elsewhere. There is no doubt that
the Trench War device baffled our side for a time. I like the story of
Marshal Joffre explaining the position to an American war correspondent
and adding:
"You see there is nothing to be done."
"No. I suppose nobody could do anything?"
"Nobody."
"Not even Napoleon?"
But Marshal Joffre paused at that, and after a moment's reflection said:
"Yes, I suppose Napoleon could do something."
Finally the "something" came in the shape of the "Tank."
When Field Marshal Earl Haig took over the chief command he adopted the
system of frequent "raids" to give to the Trench War some of the
character of moving war, and that proved a highly useful step. Still,
this Trench War was not of the genius of our people; and it was very
dull. If I were seeking the fit adjective which could be applied to it
in its superlative it would certainly not be "exciting" nor yet
"dangerous." The life was exciting and it was dangerous--a little. It
was, however, neither very exciting nor very dangerous. But it was very,
very curious. Trench war had its moments, its hours of high emotion, of
intense excitement, of crowding dangers. Its routine--on the Western
front--was laborious, almost to the point of tediousness, demanding a
sober and constant carefulness in detail, and--provided you watched the
minutes and the winds, the twigs and the sky, had eyes, ears, and nerves
always on the alert--it was reasonably safe.
Trench War exciting? No; you could not allow it to be. The moments were
rare (to the majority of officers they never came) when the call was for
a gallant shout and a forward rush in which leadership took its most
obvious and its easiest form. The hours were always when, with cool,
suspicious, deducting mind, you were watching a sector, awaiting the
enemy's raiding attack or directing your own. Stalking and being
stalked, it was interesting, absorbing, but you could not allow it to be
exciting, or you would not do your work properly. War was robbed, in
that phase of the struggle, of most of its fascinations by the
spectacled Germans who had spent the previous half-century in the
counting house, the laboratory, and the cellar, preparing to destroy the
humanities of civilisation. Trench War was a grubbing kind of business.
Dangerous? Naturally, to an extent. But not nearly so dangerous as one
might judge from the lurid accounts of imaginative writers. It had its
hours of peril, of horror. But it was not all the time dangerous. For
six days out of seven, on an average, a soldier, if he observed the
strictest caution, was "following a dangerous trade," nothing more. On
the seventh day--I speak in averages--he had his risk about doubled. On
very rare occasions he had to take the risk of a fireman who goes into a
blazing house to rescue a child, or a policeman who stops a madly
bolting horse. Ordinarily one had to be careful "to watch the traffic;"
that was all. If you wished to take a long lingering look at the enemy's
trench you used a periscope. For a brief glance (to get a wide field of
view) you looked over the parapet. There were differing estimates of the
length of time it was safe to show your head over the parapet. Some said
five seconds, others twenty-five.
"The German is slow in the up-take," remarked the officer who insisted
that twenty-five seconds was quite a safe time to look over the parapet.
Behind the parapet it was almost as safe--and on dry days as
pleasant--as on a marine parade. A solid fortification of sandbags,
proof against any blow except that of a big high-explosive shell,
enclosed on each side a walk, drained, paved, lined with dug-outs, in
places adorned with little flower beds. I write, of course, of the
Trench War in its "settled" stage--not of those grim struggles around
Ypres in the Autumn of 1914.
Not exciting, not as dangerous as one would imagine, the Trench War was
more curious, more "uncanny," than it is possible to describe. Try to
imagine the huge ditch, some 300 miles long, from the North Sea to the
Swiss lakes, which was our trench, facing another ditch which was their
trench, all lined with Eyes, thousands, millions of Eyes. All day, all
night, these Eyes stare and stare. At night the hands serving them break
up the dark with star shells, and the brains behind them welcome the
day, only because it makes the scrutiny of Death more easy. On the front
edge of each ditch the Eyes are thick in line; farther back, in every
possible post of observation, are groups of Eyes, and Eyes soar up into
the air now and again to stare into the secrets concealed on the other
side. There are Eyes of infantry, Eyes of artillery, Eyes of airmen. The
scrutiny never pauses for an instant. Let an Eye blink a moment and it
may mean catastrophe, a stealthy rush on a trench or a flood of
poisoning gas. The great dark gutter stretching across Belgium and
France was fringed with staring Eyes; and every Eye had to record its
message to G.H.Q.
Carefulness, tedious, monotonous carefulness, absolute punctuality, and
grave attention to every detail--these were the warrior qualities in the
Trench War period. The minutes had to be watched, the grass watched lest
you trod down a path and gave away some secret to the Eyes yonder. All
the minute details of life were hedged in with precautions and
penalties.
This tedious Trench War was not the game for British blood, though on
the whole it was done well, especially after Loos when the raiding
policy was instituted. But it was tedious; and very clearly it was
impossible to win while it lasted. For victory the Germans had to be
turned out of those trenches. So, during the tedium of the Trench War we
would comfort ourselves with the thought that very soon the Big Push
must come. Often the most definite news came that it was fixed for the
next month. This very definite news was usually traced back to some
signaller who had overheard something on the telephone. Perhaps
Divisional H.Q. had a Member of Parliament (doing a "Cook's tour" of the
Front) to dinner and peremptory messages were going down to the Coast
asking for lobsters to be sent up. Now a guileless signaller would never
imagine that Generals and the like were interested in lobster. If he
thought of their diet at all he probably imagined they lived on trench
maps--of which the consumption was certainly huge. Thus the signaller,
hearing strange peremptory messages about lobsters, might conclude that
this was some very secret code, and, the Big Push being in all our
thoughts, that it would have reference to that most certainly. But for
many months it was not the Big Push; it was only the lobster, which was
the standard of gaiety and dissipation at a Mess Dinner.
At the time of the Loos attack it did really seem that the Big Push had
come. But we were disappointed. Perhaps at the Front we were as
impatient at the result as the people at home, but we could soothe our
impatience with the thought of the greatness of the technical
difficulties of arranging an advance with a battle-line hundreds of
miles in length, all entrenched (difficulties which did not occur to
those gentlemen who wrote weekly expert articles, to show how it should
be done). It was clear that if we could push forward a little at certain
vital points, a rich reward would be reaped. We knew that what would
seem the obvious thing--to press along the whole line and break through
in the weak parts--would have only landed us in a number of advanced
salients which would be hard, or impossible, to defend when they came
under enfilade fire. There were scores of places in which the German
would willingly have let us through; to destroy the advanced party
afterwards. We had to aim to push in wedges at our own selected points
where the salient thus formed could be defended and could seriously
threaten a German line of communication. It was not easy, for the number
of those points was limited and the German knew them all.
Loos showed very plainly what we were "up against." There was a long
pause for further preparation, a pause which seemed unendurably long at
the time when the French were taking such a hammering at Verdun and we
were going on with tedious Trench War and still more tedious
preparations behind the lines.
Criticism of the British military effort at this stage of the war was
fairly general and sometimes very hostile. Some assumed that we had
tried our last blow at Loos and that we would never do more than hold a
trench sector until the French could finish the war. At Home there were
critics who argued that the British military effort would have been more
wisely directed if, in the first stage of the war, the British
Expeditionary Force had been kept at home and used as the nucleus for
training a great continental army, ignoring the pressing circumstances
of August, 1914.
Undoubtedly in that way a great British Army could have been far more
quickly raised. Undoubtedly, too, the task of forming the new British
Army was very seriously handicapped by the draining away to France of
practically all the fully-trained men of military age in Great Britain.
But with a choice of two courses Great Britain took the more daring and
the more generous one; and that in human affairs is generally the better
one. The material help which the Five Divisions of the British Army gave
to the French was not negligible. The moral help was much greater. The
lack of those Divisions might have lost Paris to the French and left the
Germans in control of all France north and east of the Seine; and that
event might have ended the war--it would certainly have prejudiced
seriously the French recovery.
The risk taken by Great Britain in stripping her own territory of its
only efficient army was not inconsiderable. Direct attack by Germany was
seriously feared then. A bolder German naval policy, indeed, might have
secured an invasion of England. Plans were drawn up in England at one
time on the supposition of a German descent on our coasts being
successful in its first stages, and it was proposed to meet this by
converting a wide coastal section of England into a desert.
Criticism was to be silenced in time, for presently we were to open that
giant battle which was not to finish until November, 1918, and which
was then to finish with the British Army the most important force in the
Field.
G.H.Q. moved to Montreuil on March 31st, 1916. On the same date, it may
be said, the British Army in France came to man's estate. It had been up
to this an "auxiliary army" holding a small section of the front, and a
"training army" getting ready to take over--as ultimately it did take
over--the main burden of the war; for, counting its captures of
prisoners and guns from August, 1918, to November 11th, 1918, the
British Army's share in the final victory was almost equal to that of
the French, American and Belgian forces combined.
G.H.Q. came to Montreuil because St. Omer, the old G.H.Q. town, was no
longer suitable as the centre for the vast operations pending. It had
served well enough when we formed the left wing of the French battle
line. Now we were to be the spear-head of the thrust against Germany.
Look back upon the little British Army of at first four and then five
Divisions, which in 1914 took rank alongside the French by Mons, and
fell back fighting until the rally of the Marne; and then upon the Army
of 1916 of ten times the strength, which was directed from Montreuil.
The growth shows as marvellous, and especially so to those who
understand how an army in the field is comparable to an iceberg at sea,
of which the greater part is unseen. For every rifleman in the trenches
and gunner in the gun-pits there are at least three other people working
to keep him supplied with food, clothing, ammunition, and on
communications. So an Army's growth demands a growth behind the line
three times as great as that in the line. And this growth is not merely
a matter of the multiplication of riflemen and gunners and auxiliaries,
a heaping up of men. It must be an organic growth to be effective at
all; an adding one by one of highly complex and yet homogeneous units.
A "Division" is the integral unit of any Army, and a Division must have
in the field its infantry battalions, cavalry or cyclist companies,
field batteries, signallers (with "wireless," telephone and telegraph
service), engineers, transport and supply services, medical and
ambulance services. All told, it numbered about 17,000 officers and men
at the close of the war, but in 1914 the strength of a Division was
nearer to 20,000. And this body of 20,000 was not a mob, nor a crowd,
nor yet even a simple organization such as a band of factory employees.
It was a nation in microcosm, its constituent numbers covering almost
the whole of the activities of life. It had to be organised to fight, to
keep up communications, to manufacture and repair, to feed itself and
its horses, to keep good health conditions in its camps and to succour
its sick and wounded. Besides fighting men it had doctors, vets.,
sanitary engineers, mechanics of all kinds, chemists, electricians.
Behind the line the Division's supports, its munition and clothing
factories, its food providers, had to be organised just as carefully.
Nothing can be made without making mistakes, and in the carrying out of
this giant task of making the Army of the British Empire there were many
mistakes of detail. It is in the nature of the human mind to see such
mistakes in high relief, as the human eye sees small patches of stone
stand out from a vast field of snow. But, making the worst that can be
made of the mistakes, if they are seen in proper perspective they cannot
blur the dazzling brilliance of a marvellous achievement.
Most of the mistakes, moreover, were direct consequences of that
innocence of warlike intention and that passion for human right and
liberty which was common to Great Britain as to the rest of Western
Europe, and on which, clearly, the German Powers had counted as
sufficient to paralyse effective resistance to their deliberate and
designed preparation. Hindering those good qualities of peacefulness
proved to be, but not paralysing. After all, the task was done. That
most dangerous first rush of German militarism was stayed. The powerful
beast was kept within bounds whilst weapons were forged for his
destruction. In vain were all his efforts, backed by the skill of half a
century of preparation and Spartan discipline.
* * * * *
Montreuil was chosen as G.H.Q. for a wide variety of reasons. It was on
a main road from London to Paris--the two chief centres of the
campaign--though not on a main railway line, which would have been an
inconvenience. It was not an industrial town and so avoided the
complications alike of noise and of a possibly troublesome civil
population.[1] It was from a telephone and motor transit point of view
in a very central situation to serve the needs of a Force which was
based on Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne, Dieppe, and Havre, and had its front
stretching from the Somme to beyond the Belgian frontier.
[Footnote 1: The population of Montreuil in 1906 was 2,883.]
A great general, asked to define in a phrase what was wanted for a
Headquarters, said "A central remoteness." It was urged that this seemed
an oxymoron. "Well then, if you like, a remote centrality." The finality
of that allowed of no further argument. Montreuil provided both a
central position and a position remote from the disturbances and
distractions of traffic, of a large population, of gay social interests.
The great Ecole Militaire offered accommodation for the chief offices.
There was sufficient billeting accommodation in the town houses and
the neighbouring chateaux.
[Illustration: THE 'CAVÉE' SAINT FIRMIN]
G.H.Q. of course was never a great camp. Its total military population
was never more than 5,000, including those G.H.Q. troops who were needed
for guards and who were drawn first from the Artists' Rifles, then from
the Honourable Artillery Company, then from the Newfoundland Regiment,
and finally from the Guernsey Regiment. Accommodation at Montreuil was
reinforced somewhat by hutments in 1917-18, but on the whole the town
was big enough for its purpose.
CHAPTER II.
MONTREUIL AND THE MONTREUILLOIS.
How the Montreuillois once learned to hate the English--Early history of
the famous town--Its link with the early Roman-British Empire--A border
town in the Anglo-French Wars--When G.H.Q. was bombed.
Military convenience alone dictated the choice of Montreuil as the site
of the General Headquarters of the British Expeditionary Force in France
as soon as that Force reached to such a strength as to take its full
share in the campaign. But the choice might well have been influenced by
a sentimental desire to make this town, which was so intimately
associated with the old enmity between England and France, the centre of
the Great Reconciliation. Montreuil and the Montreuillois for many
centuries cordially hated England, and not without good reason. In
April, 1369, they chased the English from the town with hoots of "_A la
queue, à la queue les Anglais._" After 550 years, in April, 1919, they
saw the British G.H.Q. leave Montreuil with what different feelings!
Very curious is the way in which Montreuil has been linked up with
Anglo-French history. In the days of the Roman occupation of Gaul the
Roman Empire had a naval station close to, or actually on, the great
fortress rock which guarded the mouth of the Canche and which was then a
peninsula jutting out into the sea. This station, no doubt, Julius Cæsar
used in his expedition against Britain. Later Carausius, a Roman Briton,
revolted against the Roman Empire and, by winning the command of the
Channel with his Fleet, maintained for a time an independent Britain. He
assumed the state of Cæsar and founded a Roman-British Empire. The
_Classis Britannica_ of the Roman Empire had had its chief station at or
near Montreuil. With the revolt of Carausius there was no longer a
"British Fleet" of the Roman Empire, and the _Classis Samarica_ (the
Fleet of the Somme) was organised to hold the coasts of Gaul for the
Roman Power against the British rebel, Carausius. This Fleet of the
Somme had a station on the Canche, at or near Montreuil. Doubtless in
those very early years of the Christian era there was many a naval
action between the British sea forces and those of the Romans stationed
on the Canche.
Of any actual Roman buildings on the hill of Montreuil there exists
to-day no trace. But it may be accepted as certain that the Gauls had
fortified this great hill at the mouth of the Canche and that the Roman
Conquerors did not neglect its strategical advantages. It is well within
the bounds of the historic imagination to picture Carausius, the man who
first taught England that her fate depended on the holding of the Narrow
Seas, looking with vain hostility on a well-fortified Roman naval
station at Montreuil which often sent harassing expeditions against his
coast. In later years of Anglo-French enmity Montreuil was
Montreuil-sur-mer only in name, for the sea had retreated ten miles, and
Etaples was the port at the mouth of the Canche; but in the Roman days
and for some centuries after, Montreuil was a good harbour for trade or
for war.
When the barbarian invasions overwhelmed the Roman Empire, Montreuil
disappeared from history until the Seventh Century, when the monk St.
Saulve (subsequently Bishop of Amiens) built a monastery on the great
hill. From this monastery, without much doubt, the name of Montreuil
comes; for in all old French manuscripts it is spelt "Monstereul," which
is an easy step from "Monasteriolum," "the place of the monastery." In
St. Saulve's day Montreuil appears to have been a bold promontory at the
edge of the sea, with the River Canche running close to its base and a
thriving village at its foot. According to some accounts, St. Saulve's
first monastery was built on the ruins of an earlier castle; if so it
would probably have been a castle of Roman origin.
Montreuil became a famous shrine, and reports came from it of many
miracles. The Saints Omer, Riquier, Bertin and Josse, whose names are
kept on record in St. Omer and other neighbouring towns and villages,
were monks of the Montreuil monastery. There is a Forest of Josse just
near Montreuil, and I regret to say that some American officers were
persuaded to believe that it got its name from being the site of a
Chinese Labour Joss-house, to the lessening of the glory of St. Josse.
With the ravages of the pirate Northmen another period of darkness falls
upon the town of Montreuil until the 9th century, when the famous Count
Hildgood (that is to say "hold-good," a stubborn man in the fight)
resolved to make head against the Northmen, and in defence of his county
of Ponthieu built on Montreuil Hill a strong fortress. Traces of this
fortress still exist in the town. The Hotel de France (which was a
meeting place for officers of G.H.Q. when a dinner away from Mess
formalities was desired) stands on part of the site of "Hold-good's"
fortress.
Count Hildgood was something of a statesman as well as a soldier, and
encouraged a civilian population to collect at the foot of his fortress,
and used the glory of St. Saulve's monastery to attract to the place
other religious communities from Brittany and elsewhere. Montreuil
became thus a famous strong-point. It developed on the familiar lines of
a mediæval city with its well-established local rights, those of "the
peers of the peerage of Montreuil." The ravages of the Northmen in the
surrounding country continued, but Montreuil was too strong for them and
grew into a city of refuge, giving hospitality to many religious refugee
communities even from as far away as Brittany.
It remained without dispute a part of the county of Ponthieu until 939,
when, as related by the monkish historian Richer, it was coveted by the
Count of Flanders and captured through the treachery of the governor,
Robert le Chepier. (One of the towers of the existing fortifications
still bears his name). The children of the Count of Ponthieu were taken
captives and sent to the English Court to be held as prisoners--giving
rise to one of the first of the many grudges that the good Montreuillois
had against England. The Count of Ponthieu appealed for help to the then
Duke of Normandy (William of the Long Sword). The help was given,
Montreuil was wrested from the Flemings, and handed back to the Count of
Ponthieu according to some accounts, held by the Normans according to
other accounts, which have a greater air of reasonableness, for the
Normans were good at taking and slow at giving back.
[Illustration: OUTSIDE THE RAMPARTS]
But all disputes as to the possession of Montreuil between the Counts
of Ponthieu and Flanders and the Duke of Normandy were settled by the
King of France, Hugo Capet, who made the town part of the Royal Domain
of France and built a great fortified château by the side of the old
citadel. A part of this château still remains, "the Tower of Queen
Bertha," so-called from the unhappy fate of Bertha, Queen of Philip I.
of France. She was the daughter of the Count Florent I. of Holland, and
had borne Philip three children when he became enamoured of the wife of
the Count of Anjou and shut his own wife up to die in Montreuil. To
quote the old chronicle: "Il la mist en prison en un fort chastel qui a
nom Monstereul-sur-la-mer." The poor lady seems to have been most
harshly treated, and was left dependent on the charity of the townsfolk
for her food. The children of Montreuil recall the story to this day
when begging for money for the churches with the cry "Give, give, to
your Queen."
By this time the Norman Conquest had given England a place in European
politics. The 13th Century brought Montreuil under the English Crown.
Jeanne, Countess of Ponthieu and Montreuil, had married the King of
Castille and Leon. Their daughter Eleonora of Castille married Edward
I., King of England, and part of her dowry was Montreuil. Edward I. came
over in 1279 to take over his new possession, and promised the
Montreuillois to safeguard all their local rights and privileges. But
the good folk of the town did not like the English of that day, and
disputes were constant. They rejoiced when war broke out between France
and England (a war in which the French had the Scots as allies and the
English the Flemings); for the King of France exempted Montreuil from
her feudal duty to the English King.
That war was stopped by the intervention of Pope Boniface, and a Peace
Conference assembled at Montreuil. One of the peace conditions was that
the Prince of Wales should marry the daughter of the King of France, and
this marriage was celebrated with great magnificence at Boulogne, the
young princess passing through Montreuil to the wedding. She received as
her pin-money from her husband the revenues of Ponthieu and Montreuil.
But that marriage did not make for peace. On the contrary its fruits
were a new series of wars interrupted by an occasional truce or brief
peace. Crécy and Agincourt were both fought almost in sight of
Montreuil. The district round was ravaged again and again by the English
forces, and several times the town itself was besieged in vain. After
Crécy, Edward tried to take it and failed. An incident of one of the
peace treaties was the visit of Chaucer, the poet, to Montreuil as an
English plenipotentiary. An incident of one of the wars was the passage
through Montreuil of the funeral procession of King Henry V.
So through the years Montreuil was in the very heart of the struggle
between English and French. It was in a manner the border town between
the territory in France which was admitted to be English, and the
disputed territory. Thus it learned a deep hatred of the English. Often
as a condition of peace it was handed over to English domination; never
was it content with that destiny. Finally, the ambition of the English
Kings to add France to their realms--an ambition which was as bad for
England as it was for France--was definitely frustrated. Montreuil,
passionately French in spirit, "the most faithful town in all Picardy,"
as Henry of Navarre called it, was no more to be vexed either by English
governors or English marauders.
But Montreuil cherished its dislike of the English, and probably had
never been so happy for centuries as when in 1804 it was the
headquarters of the left wing of Napoleon's Army for the invasion of
England. General Ney was the officer in command at Montreuil, and his
brilliant receptions brought back to the town some of its Middle Ages
pomp. It was from Montreuil that in 1804 General Ney addressed to
Napoleon a memorial begging him to take the Imperial Crown for the sake
of France. Napoleon himself visited Montreuil more than once, and a
house in which he slept is still shown in the Place Verte.
Little or nothing of this was in the minds of our Staff in deciding upon
Montreuil as a site for G.H.Q. It was convenient (as its choice in old
times for Peace Conferences between England and France clearly shows) to
London and to Paris. It was off any main traffic route, and promised
quiet for telephone services. The feelings of the inhabitants were
presumed to be friendly, and the presumption was justified, though
curiously enough there was in 1918 a slight revival of the old
anti-English feelings, and I even heard whispered again "_à la queue les
Anglais_." It all arose from what must be admitted to have been rather
an undignified incident.
There used to be a fable--no one was fonder of giving it circulation
than the Red Tabs--that there was a mutual agreement between the Germans
and ourselves that G.H.Q. on both sides was to be spared from air raids.
"The arrangement is a classic instance of our stupidity," the Red Tab
humorist would remark, "for the German scores both ways."
"How is that?"
"Well, his Staff is spared, which is valuable to him. And our Staff is
spared, which is also valuable to him."
Staff officers, B.E.F., could afford to pass on gibes like that in
1917-18 when British Staff work was the model which the new American
armies set themselves to imitate.
But as a matter of fact in the summer of 1918 G.H.Q. was bombed pretty
regularly by the enemy. Those who lived there had unhappy proof of that.
There were several deaths from bombs in and near the town. After the
first bombing attacks orders were issued that no soldier, except
sentries and officers on night duty, was to be allowed to sleep in
Montreuil. The whole garrison was to go into the woods at night, or to
take refuge in the deep dug-outs which were tunnelled under the city.
Hardly a night passed without a bombing raid, until the tide of battle
turned and the German bomber had neither heart nor means for nocturnal
wanderings.
There was no doubt that a good motive inspired the orders for the
nightly evacuation of the town by officers and soldiers except those
actually on duty. It was thought that the Germans had discovered G.H.Q.
and had resolved one night to "wipe it out." A really determined raid
concentrated on a small walled town might have effected that. But the
nightly march out of the troops did not impress favourably the
inhabitants, who mostly had to stay. Some of them openly jeered; others
made less parade of their feelings, but had them all the same.
"Where are the English?"
"The English are in the woods of Wailly."
That was a favourite street-corner gibe.
Most officers who did not get direct orders to leave the town of nights
kept to their billets, but all the rank and file were marched out, or
rather driven out by motor lorries. The Officers' Club closed early of
evenings so that the Q.M.A.A.C.s might be evacuated to a camp outside
the town. At this camp they evidently did not have the same conveniences
as in the town for dressing their hair and so on; and they had to start
off very early in the morning to be in time to wait at breakfast.
Tempers as well as coiffures were a little ragged in consequence.
[Illustration: THE MARKET]
One advantage that we won from the bomb 'scare' (if that word is
justified) was that it gave a stimulus to archæological research in the
town. There was at G.H.Q. at the time, as a Major, R.E., that fine
"sport" Professor David of Sydney University. Professor David has a
great celebrity as a geologist. His birth year was 1858, so he is not
exactly a youngster except in heart. But the spirit of adventure and
patriotism which sent him out to the South Pole with the Shackleton
Expedition in 1907-1909 sent him from Australia to this war. He did
useful work with an Australian Tunnelling Company in connection with the
famous Messines mine, and his knowledge as a geologist was afterwards
of great use to G.H.Q. in matters of mines, of water supply, and the
like. Now he was asked to take in hand the task of providing good
under-ground dug-outs for the Montreuil garrison. His researches
disclosed some very interesting old galleries or quarries under the
citadel. Passages were cut through to these from points in the Ramparts,
and I believe that even the good citizens of Montreuil did not disdain
to take advantage of the English "dug-outs" when the German bombs began
to fall.
All the same, when that nightly march out of the town was dropped we
were all very glad; and our relations with the townspeople were restored
to their old serenity.
At the worst the hostile section was not a very large one. Many officers
who were at G.H.Q. have memories of warm personal friendships with some
of the French residents, who did all that was in their power to make
them feel that France was a second home. At one residence (where I was
billetted for a time, that of M. Laurent and his wife) the lady had
established a homely little _salon_, which was quite a student's centre
not only for officers but for other ranks. Mme. Laurent spoke English
well, and it was her hobby to teach French to any willing pupil of the
British Army and to interest soldiers in the history of the old town.
There were many others who took the same kindly interest in our mental
welfare.
The good Montreuillois of 1919 certainly did not hate the English as
their ancestors had done. They considered that the five years since 1914
had washed out all old injuries.[2]
[Footnote 2: See Appendix.]
CHAPTER III.
G.H.Q. AT WORK.
The Functions of G.H.Q.--The varying conditions to be met--The working
hours--The organisation of a branch--The Chief's system.
To the very end of the war, no doubt, an occasional young regimental
officer could be found who knew exactly what G.H.Q. did: "They swanked
about in Red Tabs and cars: had a gorgeous 'mike,' and, to keep up a
show of work, issued all kinds of fool orders which nobody in the
trenches had any time to read."
This theory of the functions of G.H.Q. had quite a vogue in "regimental
circles" at one time. It was not, of course, founded on any mental
process or it would be deeply interesting to investigate how these
gentlemen came to think that ammunition and supplies could arrive
fortuitously, that a concentration of troops or of Tanks could "just
happen."
[Illustration: LIEUT-GENERAL THE HON. SIR H. A. LAWRENCE (Chief of
the General Staff)]
But, apart from that sort of thoughtless talk, there was, even among
senior officers, some lack of knowledge as to what exactly the hermits
of Montreuil did. They knew of them as issuing General Routine Orders in
the name of the Commander-in-Chief (some 5,000 of these G.R.O.s were
issued in the course of the war); as circulating, more privately, secret
orders and instructions, and perhaps of making occasional appearances on
the battle-field, though probably the majority of regimental officers
never saw a G.H.Q. officer. In brief summary, the more important
functions of G.H.Q. were:
1. G.H.Q. was the link between the B.E.F. and the British
Government. The War Cabinet sitting in London was the supreme
authority. The Secretary of State for War was its spokesman and,
with the War Office Staff, its adviser. The Commander-in-Chief was
the Army's spokesman and, with his G.H.Q., the negotiator with the
Secretary of State for War. In the final result the B.E.F. had to
do what it was ordered to do by the Secretary of State, but the
Commander-in-Chief was usually consulted beforehand, and had always
the right of discussion and of remonstrance. The relations between
the Home Government and the Army were recognised as the most
important matter dealt with by G.H.Q., and War Office letters had a
special priority. No one except the Commander-in-Chief communicated
directly with the War Office.
2. G.H.Q. was the link between the British Army in the Field and
the Allied armies--the French, American, Belgian and
Portuguese. Relations between these were maintained through
Military Missions, we keeping a Mission with the G.H.Q. of the
Allied Army, they keeping Missions with our G.H.Q. There was, quite
apart from big questions of operations, discussion of which was
confined to the Chief of the General Staff and the heads of the
foreign Missions, an immense amount of technical transport, supply
and finance work between the Allies. There was hardly an officer of
G.H.Q. who did not in some detail come into relations with the
foreign Missions.
3. G.H.Q. had to decide the strategy of the campaign in its
relation to the British sector. After the unity of Command there
was a somewhat lessened responsibility in this matter, but the work
was practically the same. The Commander-in-Chief, in consultation
with his Chief of Staff, his Quartermaster-General and his
Adjutant-General, decided when and with what forces we should
attack, when adopt a defensive policy. To come to those decisions a
close and constant study was necessary by the various branches of
G.H.Q. of the state of the enemy's forces, our own numbers and
_morale_, our possibilities of transport and supply.
4. G.H.Q. had to arrange the supply, from Home and from its own
workshops and local civilian workshops, of all the wonderful
equipment of the forces, from a Tank and a 15-inch howitzer to a
tin of dubbin; all the ammunition and all the food supplies to man
and beast. There came to the ports of France every month for the
B.E.F. about 800,000 tons of stuff. The men to be fed totalled over
2,000,000 and the animals to be fed about 500,000. A month's supply
of ammunition weighed about 260,000 tons.
5. G.H.Q. managed a transport system which used constantly about
half a million horses and mules and about 20,000 motor lorries,
running over 9,000,000 motor miles per month; which carried on its
light railways about 544,000 tons a month and ran every day 250
trains on broad gauge lines.
6. G.H.Q. was constantly building new railways and new roads, and
developing new harbour facilities. It ran big canal and sea
services, forestry and agricultural services, repair shops,
laundries, etc., on a gigantic scale.
7. G.H.Q managed the vast medical services for wounded and sick,
the veterinary services, the laboratories for the defence of our
men and animals against poison gas and for the gas
counter-offensive. It was responsible for the organisation of the
Chaplains' services, for educational work and the amusement of the
men.
Such was the work of G.H.Q. It was carried on under these varying
conditions:
1. Maintaining a stabilised position. This was comparatively easy.
Wastage of men, horses and material could be calculated with some
certainty and replaced by a routine process.
2. Preparing for a big attack. This made the greatest strain on
Transport and Supply, and the necessary conditions of secrecy added
complications and difficulties. In preparing an offensive the
Traffic more than doubled per Division. The necessary making of new
railways and new roads and the accumulation of defence material to
fortify a new line were responsible for most of this. But the
accumulation of a big head of ammunition was also a factor. On a
quiet sector two Divisions could get along with about three trains
daily. For the purposes of a big attack ten Divisions might be
concentrated on that sector and those ten Divisions in the
preparatory stage of the attack would need about 33 supply trains a
day, and during the offensive about 27 trains a day. Put the
problem into terms of civil railway administration. Tell the
manager of the London to Brighton line that next week he must carry
15 times the normal traffic for a number of days and that it is
extremely important that people observing his termini and his lines
should not notice anything unusual.
3. Resisting a big attack. The most difficult element of this was
its unexpectedness. The total provision needed for it was less than
for an offensive. The amount of supplies necessary to go up by
train per Division from Base would be 25 per cent. less than in the
case of the preparation of a big attack. We always carried a good
reserve stock of ammunition, food, and engineering stores close
behind the line, and a further reserve of ammunition already loaded
on trains at appropriate railway centres. In case of emergency,
ammunition could start moving up in just the time necessary to
hitch a locomotive on to a standing train. Experience of the German
offensive in 1918 showed that we carried near the front line too
great reserves, and we lost a good deal of food, stores and
ammunition in consequence. That big attack indeed disclosed several
chinks in our armour. It showed that in some cases during Trench
War units had allowed themselves to become immobile. (To give one
example, many Casualty Clearing Stations had burdened themselves
with surgical stores and equipment which should be reserved for
stationary hospitals. Thus burdened, they were tempted to evacuate
too soon). There were weaknesses, too, in Ammunition Columns, and
the railway system was not nearly elastic enough. But we pulled
through, largely because the British officer and soldier has always
a bit in reserve and never thinks so quickly or acts so bravely as
when in a tight corner.
4. Carrying on a general offensive. This was the supreme test of
the British Staff from August, 1918, to November, 1918. It called
for an effort that put in the category of easy things all that had
gone before. The effort was gloriously successful. The British Army
succeeded where the German Army in 1914, under far more favourable
circumstances, had failed.
I have given only the most important of the functions of G.H.Q. and a
very inadequate idea of the conditions under which it had to carry on
its tasks, yet for all this there were only 300 officers at Montreuil
and 240 officers at the outlying directorates.
It did not leave much chance for idleness! At G.H.Q., in my time, in my
branch, no officer who wished to stay was later than 9 a.m. at his desk;
most of the eager men were at work before then. We left at 10.30 p.m. if
possible, more often later. On Saturday and Sunday exactly the same
hours were kept. "An hour for exercise" in the afternoon was supposed
to be reserved, in addition to meal-hours; but it was not by any means
always possible. During the worst of the German offensive in the spring
of 1918 Staff officers toiled from 8.30 a.m. to midnight, with half-hour
intervals for meals. I have seen a Staff officer faint at table from
sheer pressure of work, and dozens of men, come fresh from regimental
work, wilt away under the fierce pressure of work at G.H.Q.
The extreme character of the strain at G.H.Q. used to be recognised by a
special allowance of leave. A short leave every three months was, for a
long time, the rule. With pressure of work, that rule fell in abeyance,
and a G.H.Q. Staff Officer was lucky to get a leave within six months.
In the case of the big men at the head of the departments leave was
something to be talked of, dreamt of, but never realised. Compared with
conditions at G.H.Q. regimental work was care-free and pleasant.
G.H.Q. was organised in this fashion. At the head was the
Commander-in-Chief and his personal staff consisting of an Assistant
Military Secretary, a Private Secretary, a Medical Officer, an Officer
in charge of escorts and five A.D.C.s. Attached to this personal staff
were an American and a French Staff Officer. There was one officer of
the Dominions on the Chief's personal staff, Captain Botha, a son of
the late General Botha, Prime Minister of South Africa. With his
personal staff the Commander-in-Chief was quartered at a château near
Montreuil.
One rarely saw "the Chief." He seldom had occasion to come to the
offices in the Ecole Militaire, and it was only the highest officers who
had to go to confer with him. But his presence was always felt. There
was no more loyal band of brothers than the Grand Staff of the British
Army in 1918, and the humblest member at G.H.Q. expressed the spirit of
the Commander-in-Chief, and, within his sphere, was trying to do exactly
as the Commander-in-Chief would do. When "the Chief" did appear at
Montreuil all felt they had the right to desert work for five minutes to
go to a window to catch a glimpse of him as he passed from one side of
the Ecole Militaire to the other, or stopped in the great courtyard to
chat for a moment with one of his officers.
Under the Chief the staff was divided into branches. There was the
"Military Secretary's Branch," a small branch under Major-General H. G.
Ruggles-Brise, whose duties were to look after honours, promotions, etc.
There was the General Staff Branch, under Lieut.-General the Hon. Sir H.
A. Lawrence, divided into the Operations Section, under Major-General J.
H. Davidson (having charge of the actual strategy and tactics in the
campaign); the Staff Duties Section, under Major-General G. P. Dawnay;
and the Intelligence Section, under Brigadier-General G. S. Clive
(having charge of the collection of information as to the enemy's
movements, dispositions, intentions, etc.). There was the
Adjutant-General's Branch, under Lieutenant-General Sir G. H. Fowke
(having charge of discipline). There was the Quartermaster-General's
Branch, under Lieutenant-General Sir Travers Clarke (having charge of
supply and transport). Finally there were certain officers with special
duties attached to G.H.Q. but not directly under any of these branches,
such as the Officer Commanding Royal Artillery, the Inspector of Machine
Gun Units, the Engineer-in-Chief, the officers in charge of Mines and
Searchlights, the Inspector of Training, the Chief Chaplains, the
Provost Marshal, and the Deputy Judge Advocate-General.
[Illustration: LIEUT-GENERAL SIR G. H. FOWKE (Adjutant-General, B.E.F.)]
Of the branches of the Staff, the Quartermaster-General's was far the
greatest, for under it came all the transport and supply services. This
was the formidable list:
Director of Agricultural Production (Brig.-Gen. the Earl of
Radnor).
Director of Army Postal Services (Brig.-Gen. Price).
Deputy Controller of E.F. Canteens (Col. E. Benson).
Director of Engineering Stores (Brig.-Gen. Sewell).
Director of Forestry (Brig.-Gen. Lord Lovat).
Director of Hirings and Requisitions, and President of Claims
Commission (Major-Gen. Rt. Hon. L. B. Friend).
Controller of Labour (Brig.-Gen. Wace).
Director of Ordnance Services (Major-Gen. Sir C. M. Mathew).
Paymaster-in-Chief (Major-Gen. Sir C. A. Bray).
Director of Remounts (Brig.-Gen. Sir F. S. Garrett).
Controller of Salvage (Brig.-Gen. Gibb).
Director of Supplies (Major-Gen. Carter).
Director of Motor Transport (Major-Gen. Boyce).
Director-General of Transportation (Major-Gen. Crookshank).
Director of Veterinary Services (Major-Gen. Moore).
Vice-Chairman Imperial War Graves Commission (Major-Gen. Ware).
Director of Works (Major-Gen. Sir A. M. Stuart).
Nor does that finish the list, for subsidiary directorates under the
Director-General of Transportation were:
Director of Construction (Brig.-Gen. Stewart).
Director of Docks (Brig.-Gen. Wedgewood).
Director of Inland Water Transport (Brig.-Gen. Luck).
Director of Light Railways (Brig.-Gen. Harrison).
Director of Railway Traffic (Brig.-Gen. Murray).
Director of Roads (Brig.-Gen. Maybury).
The Transportation Directorate was, so to speak, a sub-branch of the
Staff. It had a great standard-gauge railway system which kept 900
locomotives running, which in one day could send 196 trains from the
Bases to railheads (this irrespective of trains on lateral lines) and in
one week once moved 439,801 troops and in one month 1,539,410 troops.
Its railway system was constantly being pushed forward, being
duplicated, and being furnished with "avoiding lines." Further,
Transportation had a light railway system which carried 174,923 tons a
week. Those were only two of its activities. On inland waterways,
Transportation carried 293,593 tons a month, and it worked, in addition,
a coastal barge traffic, a cross-Channel barge service, and a
cross-Channel Ferry. Of roads, it maintained about 4,106 miles and was
always making new ones; and it took 4,400 tons of material--much of it
imported by sea--to make a mile of new road.
These figures are impressive enough in themselves and yet give little
real sense of the full task of the Transportation Services. That can
only be realised when it is kept in mind that practically all the work
had to be carried out under conditions of shock and violent movement. It
was not a matter of peacefully carrying on a routine business. At every
point there was a constant liability to interruption and destruction by
enemy action. At every hour there was some new development requiring
some change of method, of destination. The vast machine had to be as
elastic as it was powerful.
Yet that was only one sub-branch of the Staff.
It will be of interest to note how all the directorates of the Q Branch
of the Staff were co-ordinated so that the man at the top could keep
control and yet not be smothered under a mass of detail. Under the head
(Lieutenant-General Sir Travers Clarke) of this Branch of the Staff were
two deputies (Major-General Ford and Major-General May). Under these
deputies were five Brigadier-Generals, and under them nine
Lieutenant-Colonels, and these Lieutenant-Colonels divided between them
82 subjects. A table showing the distribution of these subjects was
circulated throughout the Staff, and most matters got to the right
officer from the beginning, and if they were of a routine nature were
dealt with at once without further reference. Very important matters, or
new questions arising, went up to one of the Deputies and were referred,
or not, to the Q.M.G. as the circumstances dictated. Attached to the
Branch and directly under its head was an officer who had charge of all
orders and all publications. Nothing could be sent out as an order from
the Q.M.G. Branch, or nothing printed as an instruction from the Branch,
until it had gone through his hands; and it was his duty to see that one
section of the Branch did not tread on the toes of another, that orders
and publications did not overlap, and that an order in which several
directorates were interested was drafted in accordance with the views of
all of them.
Other Branches of the Staff did not call for such elaborate
organisation, for their duties were not so various. But all worked on
very much the same plan--of delegating authority so that once a line of
action on any particular point was decided upon, a comparatively junior
staff officer could "carry on" without worrying his superiors by
frequent references.
A G.H.Q. officer was distinguished not only by his red staff badges but
by a red and blue arm-band. An "attached officer," _i.e._, an officer
who was working with the staff as a learner or a helper and was perhaps
graded for pay, etc., as a staff officer, did not wear these
distinctions until he was actually appointed to the Staff.
[Illustration: THE GRANDE PLACE]
The red and blue arm-band was a chromatic outrage--its glaring colours
of course had a purpose--and quite spoiled the appearance of a tunic.
But it was dearly prized and as a rule was worn on leave, though it had
then no usefulness. In the field the distinguishing arm-band was of
great use, to indicate to officers and men the officials to whom they
could appeal in case of need. There were all sorts of arm-bands with
various colour symbols and initials in addition to the G.H.Q. one. A
list of them will indicate the complexity of the task of a modern army
in the field. Special arm-bands of different designs were authorised to
distinguish:
General Headquarters.
Army Headquarters.
Army Corps Headquarters.
Corps Machine Gun Officers.
R.A.F. Headquarters.
Cavalry Divisional Headquarters.
Divisional Headquarters.
Tank Corps Staff.
Tank Headquarters.
Tank Brigade.
Cavalry Brigade.
Infantry Brigade.
Cavalry Divisional Artillery Headquarters.
Divisional Artillery Headquarters.
G.H.Q. Troops Headquarters.
Lines of Communication.
Provost Marshal and his assistants.
Signal Service.
Military Police.
Railway Transport Officers.
Embarkation Staff.
Staff, Directorate of Light Railways.
" " Roads.
" " Docks.
" " Transportation.
" " Inland Water Transport.
" " Broad Gauge Railways.
Light Railways District Superintendent.
" Inspector.
" Yardmaster.
" Controlman.
" Guard.
Officers, Staff Inspector War Trophies.
Servants to Military Attaches.
Stretcher bearers.
All medical personnel.
Press correspondents and servants.
Train Conducting Officers.
Checkers.
Town Majors.
Traffic Control.
Agents de Police Special.
Instructors of Machine Gun School, Lewis Gun School,
and Machine Gun Corps Base Depôt.
H.Q. Corps Heavy Artillery.
Special Brigade.
Area Commandants.
Billet and Camp Wardens.
Corps Chemical Advisers.
Divisional Gas Officers.
Instructors of Divisional Gas Schools.
Camouflage Officers attached to Corps.
Salvage Corps.
Civilian Platelayers.
Intelligence Police.
Sanitary Sections.
Belgian Civ. Rly. Staff.
M.L.O. Staff at Ports.
N.C.O.s and men of Intelligence Corps.
N.C.O.s and men of Dock Directorate.
Sentries on Examining Posts.
Interpreters, Indian Labour Corps.
Interpreters, Chinese Labour Corps.
The Military Police were supposed to be able to keep all these in memory
and an officer in the field had to know the chief ones; and he took care
to know at least that for G.H.Q., for it represented the ultimate source
of honour and blame. Nothing important could happen to him except
through G.H.Q., and that ugly red and blue arm-band always demanded
attention, sometimes, no doubt, mixed with a little resentment, because
of the idea that G.H.Q. had nothing much to do except to bother the
unhappy regimental officer.
We all tried to "live up to" our arm-bands in the crude
stained-glass-window colours. The Commander-in-Chief set a high example
by choosing his men carefully, giving them their particular jobs and
trusting them. He was not one of those fussy souls who want to oversee
every detail. The men who worked under him knew that whilst they did
their work conscientiously and carefully he would back them against any
niggling criticism and against any back-biting. It was a good policy
judged by its results. G.H.Q., B.E.F., France, in the summer of 1918 had
probably reached as high a summit of soldierly scientific skill as the
grand Staff of any Army in the world. The business of improvisation
which had been begun in 1914 was finished, actually finished. From
G.H.Q. was directed day by day a fighting force which met the chief
brunt of the last German attack, held it; then, while it absorbed a
great flood of recruits and helped to equip and train the American Army,
prepared to take the chief part in the final victorious offensive.
CHAPTER IV.
G.H.Q. AT PLAY.
The walks on the Ramparts--The "Monks" of Montreuil had little time for
sport--Precautions against "joy-riding"--The jolly Officers'
Club--Watching the Map--Ladies at G.H.Q.?
There was precious little play-time at G.H.Q. But there was some. It was
spent very innocently; not to say stodgily. A walk on the Ramparts was
the chief recreation of the great majority of the officers.
What a boon those Ramparts were! Within a minute from the Ecole
Militaire one could get on the broad walk which crowned the old walls
and could follow it round the whole circuit of the town for a mile or
more. From every point there was a rich and ample prospect; southward
over the swelling downs and little copses towards the forest of Crécy;
westward over a richer and more luxuriant plain towards the sea;
northward across the woods and marshes of the Canche; eastward along the
valley of the river and its bordering hills. On a fine day at the coming
up and the going down of the sun, and every hour between, there was a
constant festival of light and colour. Stormy and rainy skies gave
another beauty to the wide prospect. To see a storm march up in grand
procession and pass with its sombre pomp was a fearful joy; and there
was a wild beauty, too, in looking out from the walls on the beating of
the obstinate rains against hill and plain. Painters from all over the
world used to come to Montreuil to attempt to put on canvas the glow of
its summer scenes, the wild grandeur of its winters. No day was without
its special beauty, and the beauty was ever renewed afresh.
In the early spring the chinks and crannies of the old walls burst into
bloom of gillyflowers which hung them with tapestries of gold and red
and brown, contrasting gaily with the bright green foliage of the trees
growing at the base of the Ramparts and throwing their branches up to
their very top. As the season advanced the birds came to build in the
trees, and you might peep down into their nests and hear their indignant
chirrups at being so closely overlooked. With summer and autumn came new
colours, but always splendour and glow and movement. The country around
carried that wide variety of crops in which the French peasant's thrifty
and careful culture delights. There were beans and oats and wheat and
corn and flax and mustard and bits of pasturage, and of fodder crops,
weaving their many colours into a delightful carpet pattern which
changed with every day of the year and almost with every hour of the
day.
[Illustration: THE RAMPARTS]
Had it not been for those Rampart walks the toilsome life of G.H.Q. at
Montreuil would have been hardly possible. The road from anywhere to
anywhere, if time allowed, was by the Ramparts. Going from the Ecole
Militaire to the Officers' Club was three minutes by the street, seven
minutes by the Ramparts, and most went by the Ramparts unless work was
hideously pressing. For those with a little more time to spare there
were enchanting rambles around the base of the Ramparts along the Canche
valley or in the old fosses of the fortifications.
Riding was not a common exercise. Horses were scarce. Very few officers
had their own chargers; and those who had could not find time to
exercise them properly. So most of the horses at G.H.Q. were pooled, and
an officer having time and inclination took what horse was available.
There were many pleasant rides, the favourite one being a shady stretch
along the bank of the river.
At one point of the fortifications an old fosse had been converted into
hard tennis courts, and these were used a little, but not much. It seems
tiresome to be always repeating the same fact but really there was not
time to follow tennis or any other sport. At the Officers' Club there
was not such a thing as a billiard table; and I never saw a game of
cards played there. In some of the private messes there was a feeble
attempt to keep up a Bridge or a Poker circle. But to begin to play at
cards at 11 p.m. with the knowledge that the office is calling for a
clear rested brain by nine the next morning, needs far more than
ordinary enthusiasm. I can remember playing cards only three nights
during all my time at Montreuil.
There was a theatre at Montreuil, usually given up to cinema shows but
occasionally visited by the variety companies which were organised for
the amusement of the troops and occasionally also converted into a
lecture hall. It was well patronised on special occasions, but in the
course of a year made little total demand on officers' time. When, as
was usually the case, the theatre was given up to "the pictures" it was
filled by "other ranks." The non-commissioned officers and privates who
were clerks in the various departments had generally just as little
leisure as their officers, but some of the military population had more
time to spare; what section I do not know, for even the grooms and the
batmen had not easy places. Officers junior to the rank of
lieutenant-colonel were not allowed a batman to themselves, but one
soldier acted for two or three officers and had various fatigue duties
in addition.
[Illustration: THE THEATRE]
Just outside the town, G.H.Q. Recreation Ground provided a lumpy
football ground and a still more lumpy cricket ground. Both our national
games languished, however, for the stock reason--want of time. There
were teams, and occasional matches, and sometimes an enthusiastic
sportsman would send an urgent whip round to call attention to our
deplorable neglect of the games that made England great. He would get a
few half-hearted promises of reform, but there was no hope in fighting
against the great obstacle. It was like a college in which every one was
a "swotter."
So the 300 or so Monks of Montreuil lived their laborious lives. The
balance of G.H.Q. staff, some 250, scattered about the environs of
Montreuil with their offices at Paris Plage or Le Touquet or the Forest
of Crécy, could follow a somewhat milder discipline. They were "Second
Echelon" mostly. Current operations had not much concern for them and it
was possible to take horse-back exercise, to keep up football and
cricket and even tennis and golf. At Le Touquet, which was a well-known
pleasure centre before the war, there were good golf links and some
excellent tennis courts. On occasions the Commander-in-Chief decided to
think out his problems over a round of golf, and a little bungalow was
maintained at Le Touquet for his convenience.
Paris Plage was a splendid beach, but so far as G.H.Q. officers were
concerned its attractions were wasted. Occasionally an officer having
business at one of the Directorates near by would spare an hour for a
swim, but it was not possible on a hot Saturday or Sunday to suspend the
battle, or the preparation for the battle, in progress and adjourn as a
body to the seaside. Not only time but transport was lacking. The only
means of getting down to the beach--a distance of about twelve
miles--was by motor-car, and regulations against "joy-riding" were
strict. Not only were there regulations; there were also precautions to
see that the regulations were kept. A car could go out from G.H.Q.
garage only on an order from the officer in charge of cars, and it was
his business to get a chit as to what was the reason for the journey.
Occasionally police patrols would be stationed on the roads with
instructions to stop every car and examine its papers. This was excused
as a precaution against espionage. It was designed more to be a
precaution against waste of petrol or "joy-riding," as a few officers
found to their cost.
So the life of the Montreuil officer resolved itself ordinarily into
this simple routine: he worked and he walked on the Ramparts. But there
was one fine relief to tedium for the majority--a dinner-party every
night. The big generals, because they had to, and a few unwise souls,
because they chose to, favoured private messes and confronted at dinner
at night the same men as they met in the office all day; and, without a
doubt, found it rather monotonous. The majority of the officers messed
at the Officers' Club, which had a couple of hundred members and could
rival the old reputation of the House of Commons as "the finest Club in
Europe."
The qualification for joining the Officers' Club was to be an officer of
the British Army or of an Allied Army stationed at Montreuil. The
subscription was five francs per month, and for that and a ridiculously
small sum per day the Club gave members three square meals a day and
afternoon tea. The Club kept up a good cellar, and to the very last,
when good wine was almost unprocurable in London or Paris except at
exorbitant prices, the Officers' Club, Montreuil, could sell a vintage
claret or burgundy at nine francs a bottle, a decent wine at five francs
a bottle, and champagne at fifteen francs a bottle. The Expeditionary
Force Canteens were the caterers, and aimed at only a nominal profit.
Once a week there was a fixed guest night and a band, but members could
bring guests at any time. Waiting was done by Q.M.A.A.C.s, neat deft
little ladies who brought a hint of home to the exiles.
Custom was against forming coteries. So there were constantly differing
dinner-parties, and the conversation was rich in variety and interest.
The backbone of the Mess were the Regular Army officers, the majority of
them colonels, with a sprinkling of brigadiers, a few majors and a few
captains. The majority in the Mess, however, were temporary officers, a
few of senior rank, mostly staff captains or attached officers. There
were always some visitors, a politician or some other personage from
home, staff officers from the War Office or from the various Armies,
regimental officers having business at G.H.Q., guests from the various
private messes at Montreuil.
Talk ranged from the most serious shop to the most airy nothings. There
were experts there in almost every department of human knowledge, men
who had seen many cities and known the minds of many men. The
representatives of the Allied nations gave an extra note of variety. You
might sit at the same table with an American one night, an Italian
another, or a Frenchman or Belgian or Portuguese. The majority of men
present were distinguished men either in the Service or in some civil
profession or business. Travel, science, art and literature, were all
well represented.
[Illustration: IN THE OFFICERS' CLUB]
Smoking was prohibited in the Officers' Club until a certain hour, and
the Q.M.A.A.C. waitresses had no difficulty in seeing that the rule was
kept by all ranks. At an earlier date, when a sergeant-major with men
orderlies had charge of the waiting, discipline on this point was not
so easily maintained. Any junior officer lighting up before the hour was
promptly checked. But a sergeant-major found it difficult to take
"disciplinary action" against an officer of General rank. One evening a
very lofty general indeed, a visitor to the Mess, started a huge cigar
at 8 o'clock. Smoking was not allowed until 8.20. The sergeant-major was
a man of resource. Bringing in a ladder, he mounted to the Mess clock
and solemnly set it on to 8.20. A General was smoking, therefore it must
be 8.20.
As I have said, they fed us very well at the Mess. But of course we
grumbled at the food and found one point of criticism in the fish.
Montreuil being practically a seaside town, the fish was naturally not
good, authority having transferred to this English colony in France the
invariable tradition of British seaside resorts to send all the fresh
fish away and consume the refuse. Our fish was always plaice, and it was
often plaice that had known better days. One wag spoke of it as the
"vintage plaice," professed to know that it had been "laid down" the
year the war started, and that the "bins" would not be exhausted until
the war ended.
But the plaice was never a really serious grievance. It gave
opportunity, but not valid cause, to grumble, and discussion of it died
away after an officer one night quoted mock heroically:
Ah, friend--had this indubitable fact
Haply occurred to poor Leonidas
How had he turned tail on Thermopulai!
It cannot be that even his few wits
Were addled to the point that, so advised,
Preposterous he had answered--"Cakes are prime,
Hearth-sides are snug, sleek dancing-girls have worth,
And yet for country's sake, to save our gods
Their temples, save our ancestors their tombs,
Save wife and child and home and liberty,--I
would chew sliced-salt-fish, bear snow--nay, starve
If need were--and by much prefer the choice!"
After dinner the routine was to go and look at the map before settling
down again to work. Military Intelligence, in one of its rooms, kept
up-to-date hour-by-hour a map of the fighting front, and after dinner we
would crowd to this room to see the latest official news put up on the
map and to hear the latest unofficial stories which embroidered the
news. One evening, as a great advance on our part was marked up on the
map, the clerk, moving the flag-pins, announced:
"They say the enemy cleared out so quickly that they left the hospitals
behind, and the Australian corps has captured 50 German nurses. They
report that they are looking well after them."
A titter went round the group of officers. It happened to be the night
after the story had circulated--a story which President Wilson has since
adopted among his family of anecdotes--that the Australians, having the
Americans to co-operate with, had had to remonstrate with them for their
undue rudeness to the Germans. The Australians had a reputation for
being quite direct enough in their method of teaching the Boche not to
be a Boche.
The titter, perhaps, had an injurious inference to some ears, for a
General officer remarked, a little sternly:
"Gentlemen, the Australians are a gallant race. The German--er--ladies
will be quite safe with them."
So, of course, it proved. It was fiction that any Colonial troops showed
an undue sternness to prisoners. The average German knew that he was
quite safe in the hands of any British unit--whether it was from
Australia, Canada, or the Motherland.
The after-dinner peep at the map was a great finish to dinner. When the
Armistice was signed officers were disconsolate for the loss of their
ten minutes in the M.I. room. "I miss," said one, "our pleasant daily
habit of advancing ten kilomètres on a front of fifty kilomètres."
No, life at G.H.Q. was sober and strenuous, but it was not dull or
tedious. If a man has good work to do, lovely aspects of Nature to look
upon, interesting company at his meals, he has all the real essentials
of contentment; well, most of them.
* * * * *
Ladies at G.H.Q.? An almost accurate chapter might be written on this
point on the lines adopted in that exhaustive and conscientious book on
Iceland, which had a brief chapter:
_The Snakes of Iceland._
There are no snakes in Iceland.
There were no ladies at G.H.Q., not at any rate in the sense that would
be in the mind of the average inquirer. On the too rare occasions when I
was able to get a leave from G.H.Q., or was sent over to London on a
task, the civilians I encountered in London exhibited a considerable
interest in the ladies that were thought to haunt G.H.Q.
This was by no manner of means an entirely or indeed a mainly feminine
curiosity. Many people have an ineradicable idea that an Army on a
campaign ravages the hearts of all the female population of the occupied
territory, as well as drawing on the beauty of its own land to recruit
charming camp followers. I can recall, on returning from a small war
some time before 1914, attending a dinner-party in London and being
tremendously flattered at the fact that as soon as the ladies went
upstairs all the men (some of them very distinguished men) crowded
round me in a spirit of inquiry. With all the resources at my disposal I
framed in my mind a brief and vivid appreciation of the campaign.
But--they did not want to know why the Turkish Army failed or the
Serbian Army succeeded. Someone rather well known in London had got into
a scrape in the course of the campaign, and there were some very
scandalous details alleged. My eager inquirers wanted to know all those
scandalous details, and were obviously disappointed to learn that there
was no reasonable foundation for them, and at once lost all interest in
the campaign. My "appreciation" had not the chance to be uttered.
Probably they concluded I was rather an unintelligent person not to have
discovered all the horrid details. Certainly those to whom I told the
truth about the ladies and G.H.Q. thought I was either very sly or very
unobservant. Indeed one very hearty old gentleman, with a great passion
for horrid details, patted me on the back publicly.
"That's right, that's right. I admire you for sticking to your friends.
But of course we do not believe you."
Categorically, it is _not_ a fact that "beautiful leaders of British
society" constantly graced G.H.Q. with their presence. In the very early
stages of the war some of the "Smart Set" considered it rather the
thing to get over to the battlefields and make a week-end sensation of a
glimpse at the Calvary of Civilisation. They usually got over through
the influence of political friends, and most often by way of the Belgian
section of the Front, which was not so sternly guarded as the British or
French sections. Military authority discountenanced these
visits--however "fashionable" and beautiful the visitors--and soon put a
stop to them. After 1914, except nurses and Q.M.A.A.C.s it was very rare
for a woman to enter British Army areas. Those few who did come had very
definite business and were expected to attend very strictly to that
business and then to move off.
There was a suspicion that some few, a very few, "workers" were in
France not so much for work as because they found it amusing. These got
no further than the Base ports as a rule, and were not officially
encouraged. The vast majority of the women workers in France were there
for patriotism's sake, attended strictly to their business, and had no
time (or inclination, presumably) for frivolity.
All this is very disappointing, I am aware. But it is true. The life we
lived at G.H.Q. was truly monastic. We never saw an English woman unless
she were a nurse or Q.M.A.A.C. or some other uniformed fellow-officer or
fellow-soldier.
[Illustration: THE PLACE GAMBETTA]
Nor was there any idle local feminine society to take the thoughts of
officers from the stern tasks of war. Montreuil was very, very prim and
dull even for a small French provincial town. There may still be some
people whose ideas of French social life are based on those quarters of
Paris whose theatres, books, newspapers, restaurants, manners are shaped
by the wishes (or fancied wishes) of the floating population of visitors
and of a small section of idle and worthless French. But I fancy that in
these days such people are few; and most people know that the average of
French life is not at all like Montmartre or the Latin Quarter, which
are less typical of France than, say, Piccadilly Circus is of England.
For thorough straight-laced respectability there is nothing to beat a
small French provincial town.
Montreuil was the most respectable place one could imagine before the
war. It sheltered a small colony of artists in the summer, attracted by
the wonderful panoramas from the ramparts; but they came to work, and
did not bring with them what is supposed to be the atmosphere of the
Latin Quarter. The local population was exceedingly decorous and rather
inclined to be clerical in sympathy, for Montreuil was a great centre
for schools.
During our occupation of the town as the home of G.H.Q. there might be
noted occasionally the arrival from Paris, or elsewhere, of some gay
young lady or couple of ladies who, having heard that the British Army
had its headquarters there, had decided, from motives of patriotism, of
_camaraderie_, or from less admirable motives, to come and enliven the
dullness of the place. Departure would follow with ungallant
promptitude. The same day, or the next, the lady would move away, with a
gendarme to see that she did not miss her train.
The monastic severity of life at G.H.Q. relaxed a little, I think, when
the immediate environs of Montreuil were passed. Then you had got out of
the area of First Echelon G.H.Q. and were in that of the Second Echelon,
which was largely made of subsidiary services not so directly concerned
with the administration of the fighting Army. Life was a little less
strenuous, and perhaps Aphrodite was not altogether neglected for Ares.
Here conditions reflected the average attitude of the British Army
administration in the matter of morals, which was practically that of
British civilian life, with somewhat more precaution and guardianship
but no grandmotherly supervision. The female personnel of the Army was
very carefully safeguarded. The male personnel, if it were absolutely
bent on it, could find opportunities for mischief in some of the Base
towns. G.H.Q. itself--partly perhaps because of the necessity of extreme
safeguards against espionage--was expected to lead a strictly single
life; to conform to the perfect standard that was supposed to rule in
the Provost Marshal's branch. That rigour, of course, was dictated not
by an exceptional prudery in the P.M. authorities but by military
convenience. Ordinarily, outside of G.H.Q. and the Provost Marshal's
branch, there was a margin allowed for human error.
Paris Plage, the jolly beach at the mouth of the Canche near Montreuil,
was for a long time "out-of-bounds" to all British troops. Paris Plage
had, in pre-war days, rather a "Montmartre" reputation in Paris. It was
the beach for the cheap tripper. It was the beach to which the
hardworking _bourgeois_ of the city who had to stick to his bureau
during the summer sent his wife, and came down to see her on Sundays. It
was also the beach for the Don Juan of modest means to visit with his
temporary Juanita. Not this Paris reputation reacting on the traditional
British hypocrisy caused the long-standing ban on Paris Plage, but
practical sanitary reasons. It had not then a good reputation from the
point of view of health. But as the size and the activities of G.H.Q.
increased and it was necessary to find places for new departments near
Montreuil, Paris Plage had to be utilised. After being subjected to a
drastic sanitary inquisition it was thrown open to the troops and became
the headquarters of several minor departments.
But of course the old gay life did not return. It was no longer a suburb
of Montmartre. Still it preserved a certain air of rakishness. Going
through there in a car one day with another staff officer we noticed a
little shop in the windows of which were displayed very coquettishly two
or three filmy articles of feminine _dessous_. A lightning glance
through the door showed that there was quite a bevy of fair shop
assistants--about three assistants to each item of merchandise. In the
window there was this simple device, in English:
CHEQUES CASHED.
We dared not investigate further. A G.H.Q. car is so clearly
recognisable as such that it could not stop outside, and the subterfuge
of drawing up at the Directorate of Inkstands and making a
reconnaissance on foot we felt to be _infra dig_. It was only possible
to pass the shop slowly on the return journey, and to look out for it
the next month when going that way again. It was still open, still bore
its artless device. It was a little bit of the old life of Paris Plage
that had escaped the shocks of war.
In very truth we were a dull lot from one point of view. Even the
conversation at meals was ordinarily wanting in that type of anecdote
which--as Walpole said when he was asked why it was rife at his table,
where sat the greatest men of Europe, who should have had something
better to talk about--is popular "because every man understands it."
Perhaps the propriety of our conversation was partly due to the fact
that there was nearly always a padre within earshot. Perhaps I may dare
the explanation of the general absence of "sex interest" in our lives,
that here were gathered together a band of men with very exacting and
very important work to do, and that they simply had not time nor
inclination to bother about what is usually an amusement of idle lives.
CHAPTER V.
THE MUNITIONS OF THE WAR.
The Shell shortage--When relief came--The dramatic Tanks--Bombs--Some
ammunition figures--The ingenious inventor.
As soon as any subject is involved in political discussion the facts
about it are apt to be distorted in the interests of some particular
view. The "Shell shortage" in the early stages of the war has become in
a sense a political issue; and that I do not intend to discuss. But some
facts about munitions supply must be given--for that was the very pivot
of the war--irrespective of what political case they help or harm.
The British Force at the outset of the war suffered from a shell and gun
shortage as compared with its enemy, because it had been trained and
equipped for a different type of warfare from that which actually came.
It had very little high explosive shell, and what it had was rarely
"high explosive" in the real sense of the term. The patient search for a
foolproof fuse had been so successful that our H.E. shell was
comparatively inoffensive when it reached the enemy's lines. It
spluttered off rather than shattered off. All this was put right in
time. But the difficulties which the Munitions Supply Department had to
face at the outset were enormous. There were, considered in the lights
of the needs of this war, practically no shells, no guns, and no
machinery for making them. Essential material was lacking in many cases,
and the only source of quick supply was Germany, which alone in the
world had organised for war.
But all difficulties were overcome. How great the growth some
comparative figures will show. The production of high explosive in 1914
was almost negligible. The year's supply would not keep the guns of 1918
going for a day. In 1915 we began to produce high explosive on a large
scale, and in amounts which made the 1914 output seem contemptible, but
still in quite inadequate quantities. In 1916 we had increased the 1915
amount sevenfold. In 1917 we had increased that 1916 amount fourfold.
From March, 1915, to March, 1917, the increase was twenty-eight fold. Of
machine-guns we made samples in 1914 and we began to manufacture
quantities in 1915. In 1917 we made twenty times as many as in 1915. Of
aeroplanes the figures mounted in steep flights. In 1916 we seemed to be
producing vastly. In 1917 the rate of production for the first six
months had increased fourfold as compared with the previous year, and
another great acceleration was in progress.
In the end we were enormously superior to any other Army in the field in
the matter of munitions. To the very day of the Armistice improvements
in the quality and rate of productions were still going on in
preparation for the Spring, 1919, campaign, which it was anticipated
would end the war. The German threw up the sponge before then. If he had
waited he would have been literally blown out of his trenches and his
chief cities.
In one sense, of course, we never had enough, but if I were asked to
name a date on which a serious shortage of munitions ceased I should say
September 19th, 1915, on the eve of the battle of Loos. On that date, a
year after Trench War began, word was passed around to the batteries of
the British line in a phrase copied from the provision shops of London:
"Ammunition is cheap to-day." Every gun-pit stocked up with shell. The
gates of the dumps were opened and shell fairly poured out. Battery
Commanders, who knew the days when one shell per gun per day was the
limit allowed, saw with joy thousands of shells, and, as they began
eagerly to fire them off, thousands more coming.
On the 23rd of September a regular bombardment of the whole German line
facing the British line began. The artillery was undertaking the
preliminary work of wire-cutting and parapet pounding. The 18-pounders
with shrapnel, the howitzers with high explosive, started at dawn, and
all through the day systematically smashed away at the German's
defences. That went on for two more days. The fourth day we intensified
our shell-fire. Along many sections of the Front the German wire was
down, and the parapet of the German trench breached. The enemy increased
his artillery fire, too, attacking our trenches and searching for our
observing stations and batteries, but on the whole getting the worst of
the artillery duel. On the morning of the 25th the final artillery duel
began. It was the greatest artillery bombardment in history up to that
date, though afterwards so eclipsed by the records of the Somme, the
Ancre and of Messines as to be remembered as a mere splutter. But at the
time it was vastly impressive.
The morning was dull but the flashes of guns were so continuous as to
give a light which was almost unbroken. It flickered, but it never
failed. The earth itself quivered and shook with the repeated shocks of
the guns. The air became a tattered hunted thing, torn wisps of it blown
hither and thither by the constant explosions.
The Battle of Loos did not give us the break-through we expected, but,
in so far as my observation is worth anything, the reason was not lack
of munitions. Loos showed that the task was a more complicated one than
merely smashing down the front line of enemy trenches. "Trench War" was
resumed, whilst the British Army prepared for the next phase opening in
July, 1916, with the first Battle of the Somme. By then munitions supply
had grown gigantically and in the mechanics of war we were far ahead of
the Germans. This was not only in artillery but in infantry equipment
and in our unique weapon the "Tank," which was the mechanical
contrivance having the most decisive results on the issue of the war.
These appeared in September, 1916, two years after "Trench War" had
begun, and were ultimately destined to make that sort of war impossible,
a task which the German poison gas had failed to accomplish.
As a race we are never consciously dramatic, or I would have imagined on
that September 1916 morning that the arrival of the Tanks on the Somme
front had been carefully timed and stage-managed. The morning was dull
and misty. Over the seared and terrible land little wisps of fog rose
and fell. All likeness to our gentle mother earth had been battered out
of the fields, which were rubbish-heaps of churned-up débris of bodies,
dust, weapons--hideously pock-marked by the eruption of the shells.
Where had been villages were dirtier patches of desolation. Where had
been woods, groups of splintered stumps. It was an abomination of
desolation, like as when the earth was first formed out of the void. In
the midst of this desolation out of the mist came, crawling uncouthly,
the Tanks, like prehistoric saurians.
The German forces were obviously frightened by the Tanks, which climbed
over their trenches, and impervious to rifle bullets, smashed up
machine-gun emplacements and redoubts. But that Tank of 1916 was nothing
like the perfected machine of 1918. Its rear steering wheel was a
weak-spot liable to be shot away. Its pace was too slow for it to keep
up with charging infantry. No real tactics had been evolved for its use.
But, such as it was, that Tank at first brought alarm to more than the
enemy. In going to and from the battle front it "got the wind up" many a
British dug-out. Here is an artillery officer's yarn of the first "Tank
night":
"Our 'Mess' was a roofed-over shell-hole a mile or so in front of
Martinpuich. The roof would keep out shrapnel bits but was no use
against a direct hit from a shell. I was Orderly Dog for the night and
it was my business to take action, when, outside, a strange spluttering,
growling, scratching, spitting sound broke into the steady barking of
the guns. It was like a thousand cats, a hundred dogs, and a sea-sick
elephant or two scrambling and squabbling together in a dust-hole. I
went to investigate. A Tank wandering home was within ten yards of our
Mess, heading straight for it. With all the _insouciance_ I could
command at such a crisis I begged the Tank to stop; urged that our roof
was designed to keep out splinters only and was neither shell-proof nor
Tank-proof; pointed out that if it persisted in its course seven
artillery officers, some of whom had wives and children, and all of whom
had mothers, would be pulped. Then I became calmer and told the Tank
that there was some wine in the Mess and even some whisky and soda, if
the Tank would now stop and have a drink. Fortunately a Tank is a slow
mover and my cooler arguments had effect by the time it had got within
five yards of our roof-tree. Then it backed water and we were safe. The
Tank is a noble animal, but it adds a little to the anxieties of life
underground."
[Illustration: THE FOSSE]
"The Tank" was the great mechanical find of the war, and it was an
all-British find. High authority had many fine name-proposals for the
useful monsters, but Tommy took the matter into his own hands and coined
the word "Tank," and "Tank" it remained. Those who are interested in
matters of language may note that the French do not use the word "Tank"
but describe a "Tank" as a _char d'assaut_, which is accurate, but has a
weak look. It is an illustration of their jealous and admirable care
of their language. They will not allow foreign words to intrude if that
can be avoided. We, on the other hand, are quite careless about our
language. The orders of our Army in France were bespattered with French
words and phrases for which there were quite good English equivalents.
(_Gare régulatrice_ for "distributing station" is one of the many scores
of cases in point.) It is a pity that we are so careless in regard to
our mother tongue. I made an effort once to persuade G.H.Q. that British
Army orders and instructions should be put out in English without any
foreign admixture, but met with little sympathy. The intrusion of French
words was not so bad, but German words had an almost equal degree of
hospitality.
* * * * *
But to return to our munitions. The hand bomb was a weapon which by 1914
we had allowed to fall out of use. The British Grenadiers no longer
threw grenades. But Trench War brought back the bomb as a weapon, and
our bomb was soon better than the German bomb. At the first Somme battle
(1916) we showed a definite superiority in bomb supply and bomb use.
This development was altogether in our favour. The bomb--beastly weapon
as it is, and beastly as are the wounds it inflicts--lends its favour to
the quicker brain, the prompter courage, the keener leadership. The
football field and the cricket green both give a good foundation for the
murderous art of bombing. As soon as we had the bombs our bombing
superiority grew with every day.
An instance to illustrate bombing: For the taking of the village of
Contalmaison (1916) a preliminary task was the capture of Horse Shoe
trench. The attack on this was prospering when it was held up at a
critical point by the unmasking of a German machine gun on our right
flank. To the fire of this gun we were fully exposed, and its effect was
murderous. A young cricketer rose to the occasion. Single-handed he
rushed the gun with a bag of bombs, got to his distance and destroyed it
with a couple of "hot returns from the outfield."
In using ammunition the B.E.F. put up some startling records. On August
8th, 1918, when our big final thrust began there were used 15,598 tons
in a single day. On September 29th, 1918, there were used 23,706 tons.
Here are some other big figures:
Date. Battle. Amount.
1/7/16 Somme 12,776 tons
9/4/17 Vimy 24,706 "
3/6/17 Arras 17,162 "
7/6/17 Messines 20,638 "
31/7/17 Ypres 22,193 "
20/9/17} Polygon Wood 42,156 "
21/9/17}
In the depôts in France we kept a reserve of 258,000 tons of ammunition,
and the issues in a normal month ran to about that figure though it
varied a good deal month by month. Thus the average expenditure during
the last months of 1918 was: May, 5,478 tons daily; June, 4,748 tons
daily; July, 5,683 tons daily; August, 9,046 tons daily; September,
8,576 tons daily; October, 4,748 tons daily; November, 3,158 tons daily.
On November 11th, the last day of the war, we used 233 tons of
ammunition.
Different varieties of ammunition had widely different rates of use. The
gigantic 15-inch howitzer on some days did not fire a single round. It
was a "big day" when it fired fifty rounds. It was just as well that it
was not a gun which indulged in thousands of rounds, for a ten-ton
broad-gauge railway truck would only take twelve rounds for it. The
18-pounder field guns would shoot 100,000 rounds on a normal day, and on
a heavy day would use 200,000 rounds. The cost of ammunition was, in a
time of heavy fighting, up to £3,000,000 _per day_.
A heavy item in munitions was for defence against poison gas and for our
own poison gas service. We entered with extreme reluctance into the
ghastly business, but once we started we soon made the German sorry that
he had brought that element into the war. Our gases were more potent and
more plentiful than his. For lack of material he could not give his men
perfect gas protectors, while to our men we could and did.
The last loathsome trick of the enemy in this direction was the
introduction of mustard gas, a powerful corrosive which was discharged
from shells. The use of mustard gas by the enemy raised a number of
problems for Supplies as apart from the Medical Staffs. The disinfection
with chloride of lime of ground contaminated with the gas, a prompt
change of clothing and bath treatment for men affected, proved
efficacious in dealing with mustard gas. There was, too, safety in
protective overalls of oilskin. Mustard gas affected the Veterinary
Service heavily, there being many casualties to horses and mules through
passing over ground infected with the gas.
* * * * *
The inventive spirit was naturally strong in the Army, and some of the
most useful of the new ideas in the way of munitions or equipment came
from men in the Field. These ideas were tested in the Army workshops,
and occasionally there was a certain amount of waste owing to the same
idea, or nearly the same idea, being experimented with simultaneously in
more than one Army. So an Army Order from Home recalled the King's
Regulation that War Office approval must be obtained before experimental
work was done in regard to any invention. But this, it was urged from
G.H.Q., would act prejudicially to the interests of the Force in France,
since many very useful inventions regarding stores and material had come
from officers and men of the Force and it was not in the best interests
of the public to put any obstacles in the way of future inventions. This
was recognised, and a subsequent Army Order gave authority to the
Commander-in-Chief of any Expeditionary Force to authorise trials of
inventions; but precautions were taken in regard to duplication and
overlapping.
There were not in the Field so many foolish inventors as at Home. No
such merry idea came to G.H.Q. as that anti-submarine device with which
the Admiralty was plagued--a liquid air shell which on being exploded
anywhere in the vicinity of a submarine formed an extensive iceberg
(through the lowering of the surrounding temperature by a release of the
liquid air from pressure). On this iceberg the submarine would be
brought to the surface. The next step would be easy: open with an oyster
knife, sprinkle with pepper and salt and a dash of lemon juice, and
serve.
The B.E.F. had never anything quite so naive as that. Its limit was the
inventor who claimed to be able to project an X-ray from an electric
battery so that it would kill anything within 1,000 yards. This
invention would have been a great war-stopper. It would have been only
necessary to set up a sufficient number of the projectors along our
Front, switch on the current and march on to Berlin. It was offered at a
time when inventions were rather the fashion, and it needed courage to
scoff at even the most curious notion. So it actually got to the stage
of a trial with a High Authority present. The inventor set up his
projector; an animal was let loose within its deadly range and, surely
enough, dropped dead. Unfortunately for the inventor a medical scoffer
subjected the animal to a _post mortem_ examination and found that it
had evidently resolved on suicide, for it had taken a large dose of
strychnine. This discouraged further trials of the X-ray device.
The inventor with a "wireless" device for exploding enemy magazines also
cropped up. You projected a wireless ray and it blew up a dump. This
invention could be very convincingly demonstrated within your own lines.
All that was necessary was to provide in the dump a certain amount of
loose explosive, a fulminate, and a receiver tuned to receive your
wireless message. We were not on sufficiently good terms with the
Germans to persuade them to arrange their ammunition depôts in this way
for our convenience.
There was a close _liaison_ kept up between the B.E.F. and the Ministry
of Munitions. When Mr. Winston Churchill was Minister of Munitions he
was over in France so frequently that a small château was kept up for
him at G.H.Q. He was wont to come into the Officers' Club for his meals.
There was always an air about him that he would have liked to be in the
jack-boots of his famous ancestor and give the world a spectacle of
another Marlborough winning victories in Flanders.
CHAPTER VI.
THE MEDICAL SERVICES.
The magic-workers of the war--Fighting the Germans--Concerning the
Victorian primness of conversation and the present popularity of "v.d."
as a theme for small talk--The Army and "v.d."--The etiquette of
hospitals and the ways of matrons--The war against Trench Feet--Mustard
gas in 1918.
Probably more than half the men at G.H.Q. had been "crocked" at one time
or another during the campaign, from wounds or one of those fevers of
the battlefield born of mud and filth and fatigue. Some came to work on
the Staff whilst still under medical treatment, and there was a local
hospital at Montreuil which was a boon to those out-patients needing
massage for their scars or quinine for their fevers.
Apart from the doctors of this hospital only the very big men of the
medical services appeared ever at G.H.Q. It was a pleasure not easily
won to persuade them to talk over their work. But when they did talk,
what wonders they had to tell of!
[Illustration: A BY-WAY]
Socrates in prison, when the fetters were taken off his legs, as he
rubbed them to make the blood run freely again, speculated on how
pleasure always followed pain, so that the two seemed to be linked
together by some unbreakable bond. One would like to hear Socrates
to-day, as his limb, injured in Flanders, was rubbed back to usefulness,
talking to his masseur on the good that will follow the evil of the
Great War as surely as if the two had been linked together and one was
the consequence of the other. Matter for a fine homily there from the
stubborn old hero with the divinely clear mind!
Those optimists who thought that a new heaven and a new earth would come
at the end of the war, and that even all politicians would become
sincere, alert, and vigorous in the public service, were perhaps not
reasonable and may be disappointed in some measure; but no one can
observe closely the phenomena of the war without being sure that from
its sacrifices and lessons much good will come. The dreadful fire that
had to be kindled to burn out the cancer of Germanism burned out evil
too in the nations that were the instruments of vengeance. Peoples who
went into war iron will come out steel ultimately; for the war, as well
as being preservative, will prove regenerative.
There is no better proof of this than in the tale of our campaigns
against the germs, those pitiless enemies who are always attacking
human content and happiness. It was a wonderful part of the war, that
defensive and offensive against Disease, with its trench systems which
hold up foes whom we cannot destroy with our present weapons; its
Intelligence Department, spying with a thousand microscopes into the
designs and dispositions of the enemy; its clever diplomatic service,
always raising up allies in our blood against germ invasion; its long
illustrious roll of heroes who have given up life or health to hold
positions against odds or to go out on forlorn hopes.
In this the benefits springing out from the Great War show splendid and
palpable. In the process of beating the Germans we made such great
advances in the war against the germs that we greet peace as a
definitely healthier people, organised to save, in a generation or two,
for service in this world, more than the total of all those who went to
a Higher Service from the fields of France and Belgium.
Because the war has given a sounder national discipline, because it has
cleared so many obstacles from the path of medical organisation, the
world's death-rate, according to sound calculations, will in future
years show a substantial decrease. The toll taken by the Germans will be
more than made up by the lives saved from the germs. The British
Medical Service, following in the path of the victorious British Army,
and wielding an authority that it never knew before, carried on a war
against disease in Europe, Asia, and Africa that is now saving thousands
of lives, and will save millions in the ultimate result. Enteric,
cholera, dysentery, scurvy, small-pox, beri-beri, malaria, phthisis were
fought successfully. Even that national British disease, rheumatism, was
pushed back from some of its trenches and compelled to surrender not a
few of its ridges.
Fascinating as a fairy tale, absorbing as a good detective story,
stimulating as the records of a stubborn battle, will be the record of
British medical work in the Great War when it comes to be written. It
will not be a story merely of drains and drugs and dressings, but also
of kindly amulets and beneficent golden fishes; of wicked germs who
chalk their throats to deceive with soft talk little red corpuscles; of
fairy princes who destroy wicked enchantments with spells from tiny
glass tubes. Those attentive gentlemen experimenting with neck ribbons
smeared with potent charms have not come to their second childhood; they
are on the track of the perfect cimicifuge which will keep lice off the
body and, keeping off lice, will reduce the range of typhus and other
diseases. A great tank of little live fish sent out to a malaria Front
does not mean that we are relapsing into the old Chinese school of
medicine (which prescribed a live mouse to be swallowed whole as a
remedy for one complaint), but that these little fish love to eat the
eggs of the anopheles mosquito, which spreads malaria. It lays its eggs
in ponds; the fish eat the eggs; the eggs don't hatch; the mosquitoes
don't come; and there is less malaria.
If your mind is more attracted by detective stories than by fairy tales,
turn to a bacteriological laboratory and watch the tracking down of the
Hidden Hand that is responsible for odious diseases; for example, that
one known popularly as spotted fever, a very deadly disease of
over-crowding. A cunning criminal is the spotted fever germ, and he has
not yet been quite fully identified and convicted. A victim of spotted
fever has in his throat and spinal fluid the causative germ; but this
germ hides behind a smoke cloud of other germs and must be placed quite
definitely before it can be destroyed. It was found that it is a germ
shaped like a double bean, that it is to be distinguished from other
germs of the same shape by the fact that its hide is impervious to a
certain stain which those other germs will absorb. It was further found
that this spotted fever germ would not increase and multiply at a warmth
of 23 degrees C., whilst otherwise similar germs would. There certain
knowledge stopped for a time. Other double-bean, non-staining,
non-growing at 23 degrees C. germs existed, among whom the real criminal
lived and hid. Finally, four bad brother germs were found and are now
being dealt with, and the disease is no longer a serious menace.
The divine purpose for good that runs stubbornly through life and has
made it impossible for the murderous German plans to thrive in spite of
all our neglects and stupidities, crops up insistently in the story of
the British medical campaign in this war. Thus, chlorine gas came into
the field first as the poison gas of the Germans; it remained in the
field on the British side chiefly as a means for purifying water.
* * * * *
One interesting result of the war which we noticed at G.H.Q. was the
abandonment of the Early Victorian primness in conversation in England.
Soldiers going home on leave noticed it from 1916 onwards; and on the
balance of the evidence I do not think they were at all responsible for
it. They would go away from Boulogne, after an extra careful bath and
the putting on of a clean tunic, with a steady resolution to put away
from their thoughts and their tongues all the coarseness of the camp;
and find themselves at their first dinner party in England tackled by
some young lady in her teens on the subject of lice; or by some matron
not yet in the thirties on the subject of venereal disease at the Front.
They would come back often with a distinct feeling of shame-shock, to
welcome the comparative reticence of Mess conversation.
It was my duty once to see the representative of an organisation that
wished to have lectures delivered to all the soldiers on the subject of
"v.d." To my surprise the representative proved to be a lady--and a
young and attractive lady at that. She plunged into her subject without
the least trace of embarrassment. She wanted lectures, with pictures, in
every recreation hut of the B.E.F., France, and was firm to brush away
the objection that "the men might not like it," and scornful of the
reservation that if the lectures were permitted they were not to be
"parade lectures," _i.e._, the men were not to be compelled to attend.
Finally, discovering that though the lady wanted "pictures" she had not
the pictures but expected the Army to supply them, I took refuge in a
subterfuge. "Very sorry, very sorry indeed, but there is no Vote out of
which we can get the pictures."
But the lady was insistent. She knew that there were cinematographs
provided for the soldiers.
"Oh, but that is not my department. That is Amusements."
"Very well," she said firmly. "I'll see Amusements."
And she went away to convince some other Staff Officer that universal
lectures on v.d., with pictures, would be an appreciated Amusement.
I do not know where the idea sprang from that v.d. was very common in
the Army. So far as my observation went, and from what inquiries I made
of medical officers, the opposite was the case. Among the officers with
whom I came into touch during the campaign--many hundreds in the
aggregate--I only heard of one case. Among the men of my battery before
I was on the Staff I never heard of one case during 18 months of
regimental life.
The Army's standard of health in this respect was better than that of
the average of the civilian population. There were some tragic
outbreaks--one in Cairo, another (of much less seriousness) with Amiens
as its focus--but on an average the record was good.
British ideas did not favour the degrees of regulation and interference
in this matter that other countries tolerate. But the soldier had some
safeguards which the civilian had not. For instance it was the duty of
the Assistant Provost Marshal of a Division, whenever a man reported
sick from v.d., to go to the hospital, interview the patient and try to
find out the _fons et origo_. If his mission were successful the person
responsible was promptly expelled from the Army area.
One of the Dominion Corps adopted the method of advising prophylactic
precautions (and supplying the means of prophylaxis). The British Army
on a whole did not follow that course, though in the later stages of the
campaign the means of prophylaxis were available if applied for.
But enough on that point. It was the surgical rather than the medical
side of the R.A.M.C. that interested G.H.Q. So many had "taken a knock"
and put in a spell at a hospital. Opinion was practically unanimous that
"Hospital" was a place of real human sympathy as well as devoted skill,
and that "sister" was the best pattern of womankind.
It is etiquette in the Army to call her always "Sister," though
technically "sister" is an intermediate grade between "nurse" and
"matron." Matron is a great dignitary. She has, in the language of the
Bar, "taken silk," and when her silk gown rustles into the room it is
etiquette for officers to stand up, provided they have legs and strength
to stand up. Otherwise you "come to attention" by smiling as well as you
can; a respectful, cheerful, but not an hilarious or free-and-easy
smile. It should convey the message that you are having the time of your
life in the best possible of hospitals under the best possible of
matrons. The Sister whose patient you are will be very much hurt if you
do not smile properly at Matron. "Sister" is of many different grades of
skill, but of an almost unvarying grade of devotion, the highest.
A "strafer," in hospital language, is a Sister who by ten years or so of
hard anxious work and self-denial has reached to the height of an office
boy's wage and a professional skill which saves lives daily and cuts
weeks off one's stay in hospital. You are always glad when she has gone
away from your wound, but at the back of your gladness is the knowledge
that you want her for next dressing. A good "strafer" goes over a wound
with the enthusiasm of a thrush with a large family going over a lawn
for worms. She examines, searches, squeezes, probes, looking out for
shed pieces of bone, for "proud flesh," for odd corners where
inflammatory matter might lurk. She is looking for mischief, and any
mischief found is promptly "strafed." If it is bad she calls in the
doctor; if it is minor she has her own little armoury of
mischief-breakers, scissors, pincers, nitrate of silver, and the like.
Matrons are easily offended. At a certain hospital in France the King
was half expected as a visitor. The Matron at once had a bad attack of
decoration fever. As I was a lightly-wounded that time I assisted her
policy of deceiving his Majesty into thinking that the hospital was
always a fairy bower by going out and "finding" some flowers. Then
Matron had clean quilts on all the beds, and the order went forth that
these were to be kept creaseless and smooth. But one patient would
persist in crooking up his knees. Matron argued with him. He disloyally
pleaded that he was much more comfortable that way. Now, having got the
flowers for the ward, I thought I had the right to give advice as a sort
of accomplice, and I suggested mildly: "Better break his knees, Matron."
She was offended. Then the King did not come after all; and I think she
was inclined to blame me for that.
But matrons are not altogether an evil; like the Staff and adjutants and
brigade majors, they are at the worst necessary evils, at the best quite
good sorts. But there is one matron-habit that should be dealt with
sternly by regulation. If a very pretty nurse were posted to a hospital,
Matron generally tried to assign her to the sick sisters' ward.
Obviously that was bad strategy. The prettiness of their nurse would
have no cheering effect on sick sisters, but to sick officers a pretty
sister irresistibly suggests the wisdom of getting well quickly.
Fortunately the supply of pretty sisters is too great to allow of their
all being absorbed in wards for sick sisters.
[Illustration: A ROYAL VISIT, DECEMBER 1918]
What reconciles one to Matron is the discovery sooner or later that,
despite silk gown and awe-inspiring manner, she is at heart still
"Sister," ready with skilful aid and encouraging sympathy in case of
need. It is a nice etiquette that makes the title "Sister" general, for
it is just sisterly affection which makes the atmosphere of a military
hospital so cheering and recreating.
Distinctions of rank are abrogated in a military hospital to a large
extent. The officer of general rank has a special quarter where he meets
only other highnesses; but, for the rest, colonel and "pip-squeak" (the
odious term which is vainly designed to lessen the self-importance of
the second lieutenant) usually fraternise in a common cheerfulness.
There are no rank badges on pyjamas. But one distinction has
intruded--that between surgical cases and medical cases. The medical
case must bear himself very humbly if he gets into a ward where there
are surgical cases. Even that kindly authority "Sister" will in some
unguarded moment, unless she is very, very careful, refer to him as
"_only_ a medical case."
One medical case, taught cunning by circumstances, discovered when he
was being moved from one hospital to another that a special sort of
headache he suffered from could be relieved by a large, impressive
bandage. With this head adornment he successfully deceived us at ----
Hospital. A rumour went around that he was a trepanned case, and as
Rumour stalked from bed to bed the size of the silver plate in his skull
grew and grew until it was almost the size of a dinner plate. His
shameful secret was at length discovered; he was only a fever or a heart
or something, and, whilst we were all sorry for him, he no longer
disputed favour with our ward pet--a delightfully cheerful pip-squeak
whose body was so be-stitched that we felt sure they had a sewing
machine in the operating room for him.
It is etiquette in a military hospital to be very much interested in
one's neighbour's wounds and to affect to hold lightly one's own. It is
very bad form to hint that your lot is more severe than his lot.
"Oh, I am all right, thanks," (you say in answer to his first advances);
"except for a bit of my liver and a few yards of lung blown away, I'm as
fit as can be. But that looks an awful leg of yours."
"Not at all, not at all. It is almost certain now to stay on. But it
must be horribly interesting to have a body wound."
And so the ghoulish chat goes on.
Quite half of G.H.Q. had hospital reminiscences to exchange; indeed a
spell in hospital with a bad wound was often the clinching argument
leading to "red tabs" if an officer were qualified for the distinction;
and Medical Boards in England were quite willing to certify a man as
fit for France if he was marked for a Staff Appointment even though his
category was "light duty."
* * * * *
"Trench Feet" gave the Medical Services more trouble than any other
single disease, and almost as much trouble as the shells of the enemy.
In the winter of 1915 a pilgrim to Flanders (supposing him to have a
military permit) might have observed in the rest camps behind the
British lines companies of men with bare feet, and officers bending down
anointing them. And he might have perhaps concluded that this was some
religious ritual of humiliation, such as the theatrical washing of
beggars' feet by the late Austrian Emperor once a year. But such a
conclusion would have been wrong. The proceeding was religious
certainly, in the highest sense, but in no way theatrical. It was
"Trench Feet" treatment.
The disease known as "Trench Feet" was one of the most serious
developments which the Army on the Western Front had to face when the
Germans, beaten in the field, "dug in," and Trench War began. The
struggle with the disease was a long and strenuous one, taxing to the
utmost the resources of the British Army Medical Service.
The causes of the disease were not plain at the outset, and inquiry
proved them to be various. Everybody knows that it is uncomfortable
and, to a certain extent, unhealthy to stand for too long at a time.
(The social legislation that shop employees must be allowed seats is an
indication of this). The soldier in the trenches must often stand for
long periods. That makes him to some extent liable to foot trouble.
Again, tight boots and tight bandages round the legs are bad for the
blood circulation, and can make foot trouble without any other cause.
The soldier used to be rather careless as to whether his boots were of a
proper fit, and he was apt to bind his puttees too tightly.
Here were the beginnings of "Trench Feet." To have the feet wet, to have
the feet cold for long spells, will cause chilblains, _i.e._, local
inflammations showing first as red itching lumps, afterwards if
neglected, developing into open sores. Long periods of standing, and any
constriction of the circulation from tight boots or tight puttees, help
cold and damp to cause chilblains; and chilblains used to be almost
invariably neglected by the soldier. Then came the final aggravating
cause--the filth of the Flanders mud getting into the sores of the
broken chilblains, and, behold, a typical case of Trench Feet.
In the early days cases were often of dreadful severity, sometimes
leading to amputation. In one of my billets at Montreuil was a French
soldier who had lost both his feet from this cause. Later, both
treatment of the disease and, more important, the prevention of it,
were so perfected that really bad cases were rare.
The story of the fight against "Trench Feet" is one of the many fine
stories of the war. In the main it was, of course, a story of medical
skill and devotion, but also it was a story of unstinted generosity on
the part of the War Office, and of admirable and intelligent service on
the part of regimental officers. The medical staff told me that it would
have been impossible to carry on to success the campaign against "Trench
Feet" if they had not been intelligently and perseveringly backed up by
regimental officers, and if the War Office had not poured out very many
thousands of pounds sterling for the furtherance of every approved
preventive measure.
Preventive measures covered a wide field; precautions against tight
boots and tight puttees; increased provisions of socks; increased
bathing facilities; provision of waterproof rubber boots for men while
in the trenches (these boots were of the high wader type); paving of the
trenches with "duck-boards" which gave a dry standing; more frequent
reliefs in wet trenches. These were material provisions. To second them
there was an active propaganda in personal hygiene, and here the
regimental officer and non-commissioned officer were enlisted to help
the medical staff to make the men understand that the smallest sign of a
chilblain was to be met with prompt treatment. A whale oil ointment was
provided both as a prophylactic and as a curative for mild chilblains.
When necessary this was reinforced by spirituous lotions. On officers
was put the responsibility of seeing that their men's feet were kept
clean and well anointed with oil, and that any breach of the skin tissue
was promptly treated. So officers became chiropodists, and you might see
enthusiastic company commanders assisting their men to wash and anoint
their feet, to show them how it should be done.
The winter of 1917-1918 put to a severe test the precautions against
"Trench Feet," for in almost every part of the Western Front the British
had pushed the Germans back, and there was no longer the old organised
trench system. Nevertheless the British hospital records show that the
disease was held. It was still a trouble; but, thanks to the plentiful
supply of comforts and preventatives, and to the scrupulous care
demanded by regimental and medical officers, it was no longer a grave
menace.
* * * * *
The fight against mustard gas in 1918 was another fine achievement of
the Medical Services. But this subject of the medicine of the war calls
for a volume to itself. Let me only add here that the successful medical
results won in this war were largely due to the fact that--contrary to
the system of other wars--the doctor had a real influence and power at
G.H.Q. In his own department he was supreme. So were solved successfully
the vast medical problems which the Great War presented. The greatest
armies known to history grappled in a continuous and furious struggle,
not for a day or a night or a week, but for months. The wounds caused by
hand grenades and high explosive shells were often of terrible extent.
The battlefield to a depth of five miles was under constant shell fire,
and transport of the wounded for that distance was therefore always
under fire, and roads were torn up almost as soon as made. Conditions of
infection were extraordinarily favourable. Traffic regulation had to
overcome the most serious obstacles, since railways, roads and tracks
had to provide for the constant reinforcements, for the frequent passage
to and fro of relieving Divisions, for food and water for men and
horses, and also for ammunition unprecedented in quantity.
CHAPTER VII.
THE ANIMALS OF THE FORCE.
A happy lot--The mud season in Flanders--The effects of mustard gas--The
character of the mule--Forage difficulties--The French object to our
horse ration--The Americans side with us--The animal record in 1918.
No two officials at G.H.Q. had a better right to be proud of their
departments than the Director of Veterinary Services (Major-General
Moore) and the Director of Remounts (Brigadier-General Sir F. S.
Garratt). These two were responsible for the welfare of the half million
animals of the B.E.F., and there was never a collection of war animals
that had a better time.
It was a commonplace of German criticism of Great Britain's military
position before 1914 that the possibilities of a big quickly-trained
British Army were negligible, because, whilst rank and file might be
raised quickly enough, three things could not be improvised in a hurry:
knowledge of staff work, of gunnery, and of horse-mastery. The German
now knows that he was wrong, and in no particular was he more wrong
than in regard to horse-mastery. It is admitted over all the Continent
of Europe that horse-mastery in the "improvised" British Army reached
the highest standard of the campaign.
In this matter the horse markets of Europe spoke after the Armistice
with no uncertain voice. When the British Army was disposing of its
superfluous horses, everybody rushed to buy them. Prices touched a truly
extraordinary level. The unhappy taxpayer amid all his burdens saw a
golden stream flowing into the Treasury, because his Army was a humane,
conscientious, and skilful horsemaster. The military advantage to
transport through keeping the Army's animals fit and well is so obvious
that it need not be dwelt upon. The advantage to the _morale_ of the men
is not so generally appreciated, but was none the less real. It helped
to keep our men in good heart that the animals who worked with them, and
for them, were in good heart and condition. To British men with their
fine tradition of humanity to animals it would have been demoralising to
have seen their brutes hungry and suffering. Finally, the world markets
came forward with their evidence that the British Army policy of
kindness to its animals was not only good for transport and good for
_morale_ but also good for business.
By the Spring of 1919 we had sold out of the Army 252,676 animals
(horses and mules), of which 235,715 were sold for work and 16,961 for
meat. The total realised was £8,493,920, of which £8,081,607 was
realised from the working animals and £412,313 for those animals which,
because of old age or disablement, it was more merciful to send to the
slaughter-house. In addition a small item of £18,696 had been realised
from by-products, for our Army administrators, whatever might be thought
to the contrary, did study economy, and the animal which fell by the
wayside was usually put to some use. At least its hide was saved, and,
if transport were available, its fat and bones also figured in a
"salvage" return.
This money was mostly foreign money, too. It was the policy of the Army
not to "profiteer" in the United Kingdom. Indeed, within our home
borders it was rather to help the small farmer with cheap animals than
to seek to get the best out of the market.
* * * * *
The mobilisation of the horse strength of Great Britain in 1914 was
wonderfully assisted by the willing and instructed patriotism of
farmers, landowners, and hunting men. It yielded far better results than
were anticipated. One calculation makes it that 17 per cent. of the
total civilian horse strength of the country was mobilised.
But, of course, there was a tremendous gap between this result and the
needs of the New Armies. A wise prescience at the very outset decided to
reinforce horse strength with mule strength. Before the end of 1914
mules imported from abroad were being tried as substitutes for horses in
the Army. Some of the experiments did not give promising results. The
mule, for example, did not prove possible in gun teams. But it
established itself in a very wide range of general utility and
materially helped to win the war.
The improvisation of remount depôts and of training centres for horses
and for men who for the first time had to handle horses was the first
big problem. The winter of 1914-15 was a hard time. But extraordinary
results were won by the cordial co-operation of the "horsey" men of the
country. The hunting, coaching, and racing stables were great pillars of
strength. By the spring of 1915 the position in the United Kingdom was
good.
In the winter of 1915-16 most of the difficulty had to be faced by the
B.E.F., France. We had a great concentration of troops in Flanders. The
mounted units were made up in the main of men new to horse-management.
The animals had to be nursed through a winter in what was the wickedest
country conceivable for horses. Stable accommodation was, of course,
absent. Not 1 per cent. could be housed in existing stables. Labour and
material were lacking for the building of new stables. Most of the
animals spent the winter in the open. The mud was a cruel enemy. In that
highly manured country a horse standing out in the mud had its hoofs
attacked at once. A "greasy heel" soon became a purulent sore.
The "Mud Season" opens in Flanders in October and lasts until June; and
Flanders mud has a body and aroma all its own. A great French Marshal of
a by-gone age committed himself without reserve to the opinion that
"Flanders was no place to fight in." Thomas Atkins, as he pushed
obstinately and irresistibly through the mud towards some pill-box
objective, has endorsed that high strategical judgment. Perhaps in a
future war, if there is going to be a future war, Flanders will be a
closed area and no Army will be allowed to go there to fight under
penalty of a _procès-verbal_. That should be done if only for the sake
of the horses.
[Illustration: THE EAST RAMPARTS]
As every civilian stay-at-home knows, the Army is an entirely foolish
organisation with no knowledge of practical affairs. But I doubt whether
any civil organisation would have carried the same number of horses
through the same conditions with the same small percentage of losses.
The Army did not tackle the problem in any hide-bound way. A good deal
was left to the initiative and enthusiasm of individual officers.
Some general principles were set down. Within the boundaries of those
principles there was wide scope for personal ingenuity, and as the good
thing that one officer worked out soon became the property of all the
Division, a very high standard of horse-management was reached.
Will it shock some old retired officers to hear that authority, the
highest authority, abolished the clipping of horses that year in
Flanders? Horse-clipping was once a sacred institution, with its fixed
dates and ritual, in the Army. That year in Flanders horse-clipping was
abolished, and the horses became wild and woolly but withal happy. I
used to love to see their flowing locks streaming in the cold wind as
they stood out in the lines, coated like St. Bernard dogs, and quite
comfortable. "Stables" became more arduous as horse-coats became longer,
but the horses flourished in the open with just break-winds, and
sometimes thatch rain-shelter overhead. I would never want to see a
finer lot of horses than those of the early Spring of 1916. They were
hairy and they were lean, and they would eat their nosebags, if given a
minute's grace after the feed was finished; but they were full of heart
and of work.
The enemy was the mud. We found that if the horses were given good
standings and their feet kept out of the mud the rain did not trouble
them at all, and the wind troubled them little. But once off the pavé
roads all Flanders was semi-liquid, and the problem at horse-lines was
first to secure a solid "standing," next to secure a solid road in and
out to that standing, and finally to secure a solid road to and from a
solid watering place. A unit that built for its horses elegant brick
standings in the middle of a field, and forgot the rest, found after the
first rain that its lines were surrounded by a sea of mud. Then the
horses had to be given temporary refuge in the paved street of an
evacuated town, whilst a saddened unit faced scorn and obloquy and the
necessity of constructing another brick standing on another site, _not_
an island site this time.
Standings were usually made of bricks, and the Army requisitioned all
the brick yards in the occupied area. Shell-ruined villages were another
source of brick supply. Rubble brick was of no use for standings; the
bricks had to be set properly; rubble was lost in the soil within a day.
One officer got excellent results by preparing a well-sloped bed;
enclosing it with great logs, treating it with a thin layer of straw,
and close-setting the bricks over that. It seemed a poor use to put
straw to, but that stand lasted out the winter wonderfully well.
The difficulty of getting good accessible watering places was very
great. Water, of course, there was in abundance, but the horses would
ordinarily have to go up to their bellies in mud to get at it. To set up
troughs accessible by some firm road was necessary, and the site of the
troughs had to be soundly paved. One Pioneer officer settled his
watering problem ingeniously. He had secured a pump and some hose, and
he sank a little well just on the edge of his horse-lines, and was able
to water by troughs set up on the brick standing. Watering by bucket was
forbidden except on the road, for the reason that there was never any
certainty by bucket watering that a horse would get enough to drink, and
a horse kept short of water for long is soon a lost horse.
Losses from enemy action were not very high among the horses until the
last phase. There was, on the whole, little cavalry work except at the
end of the campaign and at its very beginning. Our air supremacy usually
saved horse-lines in the rear of our lines from very severe shelling.
But horse and mule losses increased greatly when the enemy began to use
mustard gas. That proved deadly to animals. The ground where a mustard
gas shell had fallen was infected for many hours afterwards. If horses
were picketed on it, or even passed over it, casualties were high. The
irritant poison of the gas attacked their skins wherever the hair was
thin, and caused the most dreadful wounds. Precaution, however, was
prompt, and an effective curative treatment was found in a dressing,
the chief ingredient of which was chloride of lime.
From the spring of 1918 the British Army horse had to suffer severe
attacks from the air. We had by then established a very great transport
superiority, and the enemy devoted a good deal of his air strength to
bombing attacks on our horse-lines, with a view to lessening our
transport strength. At first these attacks were very deadly. But the
position was soon met. Horse-lines were cleverly concealed. The animals
were separated into small groups. The lines were protected by bomb-proof
traverses of earthwork, which localised the effects of explosions.
In the summer of 1918 the wastage of animals had been cut down to the
lowest percentage reached in the whole campaign. This meant that battle
losses were being compensated for by a very low sickness rate, achieved
by careful and skilful horse-mastership. The British Army, which had
been always an army of horse-lovers, was now also an Army of skilled
horse-masters, and in spite of bombing raids, of long-distance shelling,
and of poison gas, the death rate kept dwindling. At this time forage
difficulties were acute, but there had been close organisation to grow
fodder in Army and Line of Communication areas, and our animals always
had a decent ration.
But it was through the unsparing work of the men, with brain and hand,
that the horses were so happily situated. The public at Home can never
express sufficient gratitude for that work--work which had little
glamour or hope of reward, but which was as necessary to victory as that
of rifleman and gunner.
The final triumph of our Army horse administration was in the summer of
1918, when it was able to take up a big part of the burden of horsing
the American units arriving in France. That, again, was a factor of
victory. Without transport or gun-horses the American troops could not
have given their magnificent help in the last stages of the campaign.
In the sum the story of the British Army horse in the Great War is a
thrilling one. Our Home horse-lovers opened the chapter gloriously. The
British Navy followed up by making it possible to transport remounts
from all parts of the world. Then the men of the Old Army and of the New
Armies showed what grit and resource and kindness could do. So we rode
home to victory.
The record of the animals of the B.E.F. should do something to dissipate
the marked prejudice against the mule in Great Britain. People here do
not understand its virtues as a draught animal. Granted that the mule is
not suitable for heavy draught work and may prove a serious nuisance on
a farm if it cannot be kept within its proper bounds--for a mule has an
omnivorous appetite--still there is a very wide field of usefulness for
this animal in city work, such as bread and milk and parcel carriage and
light van work generally; also as a transport animal for the small
farmer. The mule eats much less than the horse, has a longer working
life, is less liable to disease, needs less attention. The mule's rough
commonsense, which teaches him to be very careful of himself, is a
positive advantage. Given decent treatment, a mule is a reliable,
good-natured, and likeable animal. He has not the same charming manners
as a well-trained horse, but he has plenty of character, and it is
mostly good character.
The wicked mule does exist, but he is the exception, not the rule. One
champion wicked mule I can recall. He was as big as a horse, black in
colour, and on the near side had a blood-shot fiery eye which was a good
danger signal. On the off-side he had a white eye. This was a deceptive
white-flag signal, for the beast kicked with equal viciousness on both
sides. Likewise he bit from all points of the compass. The one thing
that soured his life was the fact that he couldn't sting with his tail.
To groom Belial--that was his name--he had to be put in slings. But he
was an easy animal to shoe. Hold a shoe with the nails fixed in the
proper position, and the animal would attach itself firmly to the shoe
with one kick. An occasional Belial excepted, the mules were a pleasant
lot.
The mule is a hard worker but a sensible worker. He will not try to
overtax his strength, and he goes on strike firmly if asked to do too
much. "I may be a bit of an ass," the animal tells you, "but none of
this heroic business of the Arab steed breaking his heart with a mighty
effort for _me_."
This attitude is not poetic, but it is practical. And the mule
compensates by standing mud better, eating less, and putting up with
poorer food than the horse. The mule, however, is very particular about
what he drinks. Water that the horse will swallow greedily the mule will
turn up his Roman nose at. If you are watering mules and horses at the
same stream, the mules must have first drink, for they will not touch
the muddied water, though horses have no objection to it.
G.H.Q. during the last stages of the campaign had a hard task to keep
the animals of the B.E.F. properly fed. At the outset of the War the
horse ration erred, if anything, on the generous side, and a good deal
of it wandered into the mangers of the civilian animals of the country,
much to their contentment. As the war dragged its exhausting length
along, money became scarce, food supplies scarcer still, and transport
facilities scarcest of all. Then the ration of the animals had to be
cut to a point which represented just sufficient and nothing more. Even
so, it was a much better ration than the French gave their horses, and
there were repeated efforts by the French Authorities to persuade us to
come down to their animal ration. Those efforts naturally had a much
greater chance of success when the union of the command made Marshal
Foch the Generalissimo of all the Armies in France.
But our High Command was stubborn in its championship of the animals.
There was a very strong representation of the cavalry on the Staff; and,
besides, the British as a race have a sentiment about animals which is
not shared to the full by the Latin races. The average British soldier
would as soon go short of food himself as see his animals hungry. At one
time the British War Cabinet yielded to the strong representations that
were being made that the British Army wasted resources and transport in
its feeding of the animals, and ordered a heavy reduction of the horse
ration. Even then the British Command in the Field did not give up the
cause for lost, continued to argue the matter, and by pointing out that
a vast amount of extra work was just then being thrown upon the animals
by the reduction of Field Artillery ammunition teams from six horses to
four, secured a compromise decision which made a much smaller reduction
in the ration.
[Illustration: THE ARMY COMMANDERS]
The French Authorities without a doubt honestly believed they were in
the right and that we were "coddling" our brutes, for they made another
effort to get "unity of animal ration" as a kind of logical sequel to
"unity of command." This time they made an agreement with the Americans
that the latter should come down to their scale of animal ration.
Without a full knowledge of what they were doing, the Americans agreed
at first; and it looked as if the British horse also would have to have
his ration reduced. But with more complete knowledge of the facts the
American Army reversed its previous decision and decided that it could
not come down below the British animal ration. A whinny of joy would
have gone round the British horse lines at this decision if it had been
promulgated in horse language, for it saved the situation. I am honestly
of opinion that it had its effect, too, in bringing the campaign to its
triumphant conclusion. In the last stages between August and November,
1918, I do not think that the rapid pursuit of the enemy would have been
possible if the horse ration had been reduced further than it was in
July, 1918. As it was, that reduction put a stop to the decline in the
sickness rate and caused it to increase slightly.
G.H.Q. did its best to make up for the reduced ration by organising
local growth of fodder crops wherever there was a chance, and there was
instituted an Inspectorate of Horse Feeding and Economies. The
I.Q.M.G.S. had to oversee all animals, except those on charge of
Director Remounts and Director Veterinary Services, to advise on all
matters of forage, to seek means of economy and generally to supervise
the "horse-mastery" of units.
Horse-masters can best judge the rights of the fodder position for
themselves by noting the actual animal ration. Taking an average of
25,000 horses, light _and_ heavy, the weight of the rations at the time
of the controversy was:
lbs.
American 23.6
British 22.2
French 16.1
Twenty-two pounds weight of food per day is not excessive for a horse
doing hard work; and that was the _average_. After the heavy horses had
their higher ration the light horses had to be content with less.
Probably the French never saw our point of view and suspected that there
was not much more than English obstinacy in this determined stand for
the welfare of the dumb beasts. But the controversy was carried on with
good humour all the same, and in the end "those curious English" had
their own way.
Whenever questions such as this arose between the Allied Forces it
proved in practice that the Americans usually had the deciding voice.
Perhaps it may be recorded without hurting anyone's feelings that the
American as a matter of instinct was inclined usually to take the French
side, because his stronger sympathy was in that direction; after
experience he was inclined usually to take the British side, for his
manner of thinking was more on our lines.
The animal record for the last year of the war was a fine one. The
sickness rate was brought down to a figure practically as low as that of
a big stable under peace conditions, and this--the result of good
horse-mastery--helped to make up for battle casualties and casualties
from bombs. (It was in January, 1918, that the enemy first instituted a
definite policy of searching out our horse-lines and subjecting them to
aeroplane attack in order to cripple our lines of supply). In June,
1918, the sickness rate was actually lower than at any period in the
history of the force (7.7 per cent. as against 12.05 per cent. in May,
1917). Losses of animals in battle showed a marked reduction. The
general reduction in losses was partly due to a decrease in the losses
from enemy bombs, as a great deal of work had then been done to conceal
and protect horse-lines from aircraft attack.
In July, 1918, the horse situation was even better, and the sickness
rate for the month was 7.5 per cent. (compared with 7.7 per cent. in
June and 8.73 per cent. in May). Unfortunately it was necessary that
month to reduce the hay ration by one lb. per day. (A more considerable
reduction proposed was abandoned, as I have pointed out). The shortage
in the supply of animals as compared with requirements, a shortage
principally due to the needs of the new American units, was met by
various expedients. Nearly 25,000 animals were made available by
reductions of the horse strength of artillery units. A further 14,000
were saved by giving 6-inch howitzer and some 60-pounder batteries
mechanical transport. Another means of economy in horse-flesh was worked
out--the setting up of a "Category B" in animals. Those which were not
quite fit for arduous work with a fighting unit were withdrawn to units
whose demands on them were less exacting.
In August, 1918, when our great attack began, the animals with the Force
had heavy losses. Battle casualties were high, partly because of the
large employment of cavalry, partly because of the intensive war from
the air against horse-lines. The precautions against this kind of attack
which we had developed could not be kept up during the rapid advance,
and horses in the fighting line suffered severely from bombs as well as
shell fire. But that was part of the necessary price of victory. What
was a matter for real regret, however, was the increase in the sick rate
which accompanied the revival of intensive operations. We all felt sorry
that the forage ration had been reduced, even though slightly, for there
was reason to think that even this slight reduction in the forage ration
had made it impossible in some cases to keep the animals up to the best
standard of condition. Very hard work was being done on a ration which
was cut very fine.
After November 11th, when the Armistice was signed, our animal sickness
rate was only 9 per cent., and later, as we began to sell off our
animals, the advantage of humane treatment told in the market rates.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FINANCIAL SERVICES.
The generosity of the British People--G.H.Q. was not a spendthrift--The
Pay system--Curiosities of banking in the field--Claims of the civilian
inhabitants--The looted rabbit.
The financial side of the B.E.F. was one of the triumphs of G.H.Q. "Yes,
in spending money," someone may remark, thinking gloomily over his
Income Tax assessment. But the triumph I refer to is in the dealing with
vast sums with so little loss from peculation or from mistake.
An Army in the Field should not be pinched for money if it is to work
with confidence and economy of life. Very often in the history of war a
"ragged Army" has done wonders, and the praise of those wonders has led
to some minds confusing raggedness with heroism, thinking that desperate
impoverishment is a good thing for an Army. It might have been sometimes
in the old days, when the sack of the enemy's country was the reward of
victory and it was a case of fight or perish. In modern times it is a
sound principle of warfare that the better an Army is supplied with the
means of warfare the less will be the cost of life in achieving its
purpose.
The soldiers of the British Army in France have reason to feel grateful
to the people of Great Britain that there was never any sparing of money
at the expense of their comfort and safety. No Army at any known period
of the world's history was more lavishly provided for in food, clothing,
munitions and pay. To illustrate on one point only, that of munitions.
In the British Army 100,000 men in a day used 410 tons of munitions, in
the French Army the same number of men in a day used 246 tons. Part of
the disparity might be accounted for by superior economy on the part of
the French. Most of it was due to the fact that the British people were
able to supply, and did supply, their troops with far greater quantities
of shell, etc., so as to take as much of the burden of war as possible
off the flesh and blood of the soldier.
The taxpayer for his part can be comforted with the knowledge that, so
far as the Army in the Field was concerned, there was an honest effort
to guard against waste. Of course war is a wasteful business,
essentially, and no possible precaution can guard against some losses.
Often the position is that a great amount of material has to be devoted
to a certain purpose though it is very likely to be wasted, because the
alternative is to incur a greater risk of life. It was always the
British system, a system which Parliament insisted upon equally with the
Generals in the Field, that any sacrifice of money and material was to
be preferred to a useless sacrifice of life.
In peace times the Finance Branch of the War Office had a long-standing
reputation for artful meanness. It was accused of working on the
principle that an officer in the Army was always possessed of abundant
private means and therefore never really wanted any Army money, and that
a private soldier was clearly a fool and a failure for being in the Army
at all and therefore deserved little or no consideration. If he were
allowed money to spare he would waste it on dissipation.
Certainly F. Branch War Office showed itself time and again very sharp
at construing the Pay Warrant to the benefit of the Treasury, but it was
never quite as bad as that. In the Field the spirit of economy had to
give place to the spirit of efficiency and of _morale_. Nevertheless, a
very tight check was kept on the money-bags to prevent dishonesty or
extravagance. The Financial Adviser at G.H.Q. was a potentate of great
ability and of enormous authority. No order which involved the spending
of money could go out without being referred to him and winning his
approval. He had the right of access to the Commander-in-Chief at all
times. It was said that since as a civilian he did not get prompt and
full respect from sentries, or from officers who did not understand his
position as Chancellor of the Army Exchequer, he was made a General in a
single day, and that when he first walked abroad as a General and
sentries presented arms to him he was greatly perturbed, thinking that
this might be the first step in an outbreak of personal violence. But
that was by way of _persiflage_. All officers who came into contact with
him recognised a man of ability and of sympathy.
It was the Army Pay Department that most closely touched the lives of
the soldiers in France. It had to pay a total of about two and a half
million people of all kinds--officers who were either affluent or
careful and gave no trouble at all; officers who were neither and whose
impecuniosity had to be guarded against; a very few officers who were
actually dishonest; "other ranks" in whose pay there were infinite
complications due to separation allowances and the like; and furthermore
the women of the various auxiliary corps, the Labour Corps of various
nationalities, civilian auxiliaries and the like. As the war progressed
"Pay" had to act as money-changer, dealing with almost all the
currencies of the world, and as a Savings Bank and as liquidator of all
kinds of claims and as a third party in those highly convenient
transactions in which an officer bought clothes and other necessities
from "Ordnance" at a price which was sometimes less than half that
charged by London stores.
The Army Pay Department in the Field was not the final paymaster. It
gave advances on account only, leaving the final adjustment to the Pay
office at Home. But during the war and up to the end of 1918 (by which
time demobilisation had broken up most of the units in France) it had
paid out nearly four thousand million francs, and its total losses from
forgeries, war losses, bad money, etc., were quite insignificant. At one
period in 1918 when an analysis was made, it was found that the bad
money passed off on to the Pay Department had averaged only eight francs
per week.
The financial arrangements of the old Regular Army had to be modified
very considerably, especially in regard to officers, as the war
continued, though at first an attempt was made to apply them in their
entirety. The Army Pay Agents soon found out that a number of the new
officers who had come into the service had little or no sense of
financial responsibility, and the Pay Department had to tighten the
reins considerably. Exceedingly liberal arrangements had been made at
the outset to meet the convenience of officers. Thus any Branch of the
Bank of France would cash an officer's cheque up to £5, and any Field
Cashier--each Division had a Field Cashier--would cash his chit to the
same amount. Also, he might draw his allowances by cheque monthly, and
this cheque was good at any Field Cashier's office.
Some early developments were startling. There is a tale of one officer
(he was in a position which gave him a wide range of movement)
collecting £125 in one day before going on leave. He had a "good leave"
presumably, but he had at the time only £3 due to him at his Army
Agent's, and it took some time for him to make up the balance on his pay
as lieutenant. To meet the case of gentlemen "raising the wind" on this
scale there was instituted an "Officer's Advance Book," the conditions
of obtaining and using which were gradually tightened, so that it was
only possible for an officer below "field" rank to obtain three advances
in a month of 125 francs each. That still left one loop-hole for
improvidence or dishonesty--cashing cheques at a Bank of France after
drawing the three advances. But not very many officers could get to a
bank except during a "leave," and a certain "overrunning of the
constable" was expected then and could be adjusted afterwards. Officers
who consistently drew beyond their means after warning were looked upon
as having dishonest intentions and were put on a "black list." They
could not draw cheques, and were deprived of their "Advance Books" until
they were in credit again.
There was no serious amount of financial delinquency. At the worst the
"black list" just crept over the 100 limit. One incorrigible
spendthrift, having been deprived of his Advance Book, tried to obtain
another from a Field Cashier in another centre on the plea that his
previous book "had been captured by the enemy."
It was very human, the Pay Department, for all its strictness, and in my
experience never refused an officer who was going on leave a "bit extra"
if he had a good financial name. One of its very kind customs was to
arrange for wounded officers evacuated to "Blighty" to be met in England
by Pay Agents who pressed on them change of a little cheque to meet
possible incidental expenses in hospital. It had, too, a nice habit of
watching the tactical situation and acting accordingly. After the great
German onrush of the Spring of 1918 many hundreds of officers were
destitute, their kits abandoned to the enemy. Pay Department promptly
relaxed all its rules to enable them to outfit again promptly; and, of
course, there was ultimately reimbursement to the officers of the value
of their kits. Up to the conclusion of the war "Pay" reimbursed nearly
20,000 officers for loss of kit.
[Illustration: Photo by J Russell & Sons
MAJOR-GENERAL SIR CLAUDE A. BRAY (Paymaster-in-chief, B.E.F.)]
"Pay" changed any sort of money into French currency; and it had to deal
with many varieties. Serbian, Egyptian, Nova Scotian, Greek, Kruger
money (from South Africa), Australian bank notes, Italian, Russian,
American, Canadian, local French "Bank of Commerce" notes (which were
monetised in some cases by the Bank of France), Mexican dollars--all
came to its counter and were duly honoured. But it turned up its nose at
American Confederate Bank notes and assignats of the First French
Republic (both useless except for wall paper).
Various currency problems had to be solved by "Pay." The Bank of France
was always in a state of worry over the huge consumption of 5 francs
notes by the British Army. These were the most favoured units for paying
the men; they seemed to disappear from currency at a quick rate, and
they were expensive to print. The situation was improved by the adoption
of the suggestion of "Pay" that a 10-francs note should be issued.
Probably the Bank of France would have been quite content if they had
thought that the 5 francs notes were destroyed. But they knew that they
were being hoarded up by the French peasants, who absorbed every bit of
silver as soon as it was put into circulation, and, after silver,
favoured for their hoards notes of small denominations. At the time of
the German advance in the Spring of 1918 "Pay" had a curious
illustration of the hoarding ways of these French peasants. That advance
let loose a flood of silver coinage. The people who lived in districts
which might have to be evacuated changed their hoarded silver for notes,
which would be more handy to carry away.
"Pay" at an early stage of the war put forward an interesting
proposal--the issue of International Army Notes in various denominations
which would be good in any one of the Allied Countries. The proposal was
never carried through, but its idea is being revived in the financial
world to-day by the proposal for an International Bank to take over some
or all of the war debts of the Allies and issue a paper currency good in
any one of the Allied Countries.
The encouragement of thrift among the soldiers was part of the work of
"Pay." In August, 1915, it secured soldier subscriptions to the War Loan
to the extent of £25,200. The next year it established Savings Banks,
and in 1918 it set up agencies at all Army Post Offices for the sale of
War Savings Certificates. But its greatest achievement in the way of
thrift was the Chinese Savings Bank, which was started in August, 1918,
and in a fortnight had deposits of 400,000 francs.
The last welcome task of "Pay" was to establish Field Cashiers in
Germany and to fix a rate of exchange for German money, which was
started at five marks=2s. 8d.
The Claims Commission (established in December, 1914) was another branch
of the financial organisation. Its business was to decide upon claims
for damage done by the British Army to the property of civilians, French
or Belgian. The British Army paid for everything, even to an orchard
tree that an Army mule had nibbled at. Claims made were sometimes
ridiculous in character and in extent. In my regimental experience I
remember a market gardener claiming 200 francs on account of damage done
by a horse which had wandered into his potato patch for a few minutes.
The claim was very amicably settled on the spot by the payment in cash
of two francs. On an average, "Claims" paid about one fourth of the
total asked for, and the civilian population did very well indeed on
that.
In the very early days of the war the civil population of France, filled
with relief and gratitude at the arrival of the British Force, of whose
coming they had almost despaired, greeted officer and soldier with the
most generous hospitality. Indeed as the "Old Contemptibles" marched
through Boulogne women stripped off their rings to give them to the
marching soldiers. Wine, fruit, and other delicacies were pressed on
everybody without payment. That generous enthusiasm could not last
through a four years' war, but to the very end the best of the French
population recognised a duty of hospitality to their British guests. It
was only natural, however, that many of the peasants and small traders,
hard hit by the war, should take advantage of their opportunities to
make profit out of our Army. This was particularly noticeable after the
coming of the Colonial troops, who were just as lavish in spirit as the
British Tommies and had a good deal more pay to spend.
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL L. B. FRIEND (President of Claims
Commission)]
The Claims Commission, which in the later stages of the war had its
headquarters at Paris Plage and Le Touquet, did its work to the
satisfaction of everybody. At first its responsibilities were confined
to paying claims for damage done. Later it took over all the financial
adjustments in connection with the hiring and the requisition of
civilian land and property. Its tasks called for a great deal of tact
and a wide variety of resourcefulness. In the Spring of 1918 the
abandonment in evacuated areas by civilians of wine and portable
property caused trouble. The events at Amiens illustrate the position.
As soon as the city came under enemy shell fire the civil authorities
left, and with them most of the respectable inhabitants. Less
respectable people remained, and probably were guilty of some excesses.
The British Army Authorities, however, were prompt in taking over
control, and on April 3rd the city was quiet and orderly. But very
serious reports of damage by British troops were put into circulation.
On investigation by the Claims Department the actual cases resolved
themselves into two: in one house three doors had been broken down; in
the other case the British Army had stolen a rabbit "which had been
abandoned by its owners." These were the only two charges definitely
preferred. But it was, seemingly, a fact that in some villages outside
of Amiens regrettable incidents arose from the fleeing civilians
abandoning stores of wine or disposing of them to the troops at
sacrifice prices. The French Authorities were asked to assist in
forbidding the importation by civilians of intoxicants into threatened
areas.
Towards the end of the war some of the French towns which had been
sheltering large numbers of British troops raised the question of the
payment of octroi duties on the goods consumed by the troops. As I
suppose is well known, French towns have local customs duties (called
octroi because the right to collect them for local purposes was
originally a concession from the King). All food, etc., coming into the
town pays a small tax. Supplies for the British Army did not pay this
tax, and the towns complained of the loss thus caused to their municipal
revenues. G.H.Q. willingly conceded the payment of octroi. A lump sum
was allowed for the past period, and an arrangement made for the future
payment of so much per head every half year for each soldier billetted
within the town boundaries. The _per capita_ charge varied greatly. A
few French towns refused to make any claim, saying that they were well
content to make that concession to their British guests.
On the whole the financial record of the British Army in France is
something to be proud of. We paid justly--sometimes generously--for
everything, and no civilian was left with a legitimate grievance.
CHAPTER IX.
THE ECONOMY SERVICES.
What the German submarines taught us--The Salvage Organisation--O.C.
Rags, Bones and Swill--Agriculture's good work and hard luck--The
Forestry Directorate--Soldiers learn economy in a stern school.
There is a sort of grim pleasantry in the fact that the German submarine
war, which was to bring Great Britain to her knees, only brought her to
a school of economy where she learned some lessons which will be very
useful in the future, once the after-the-war phase of reckless
extravagance has passed away. When the cumulative effect of the
unlimited submarine war made itself felt in 1918 it did not stop
operations, though it may claim some of the responsibility for the
extent of the German success in the Spring of that year, which might
have been much more limited if we had had full supplies of wire and
other defence material. What it did do was to set G.H.Q. to devising
valuable economies.
The German was in effect too late with this, as with his other desperate
steps. At the outset of the war, with an inferior sea power, Germany
had yet the chance of using sea forces with great, and perhaps decisive,
effect by raids on the British supply routes with light cruisers and
converted merchantmen. She had prepared for this but neglected the one
necessary act of forethought and daring by not sending out to sea her
commerce destroyers. Such a sea policy would, of course, have been
ruthless; but it could have been made effective without violation of sea
law and without outrages on neutrals. After August, 1914, Germany sought
vainly to repair her initial lack of sound naval sense by the submarine
naval war, in which every canon of sea law and every sentiment of
justice and humanity were violated. The more the submarine war showed
signs of failing the more atrocious and reckless it became, until in its
final shape it set almost all the world against the German Empire. Yet
withal the U-boat atrocities went for nothing. The German people must
see now that their Prussian masters put them very much in the position
of the innkeeper of the old creepy German story. He and his wife
resolved to kill in his sleep and rob a chance traveller who had come to
their inn. They killed him and found that his purse was empty and that
he was their own long-lost son.
On the debit side, as a result of the German submarine war we had in
1918 a lack of certain material--particularly of chocolate, biscuits,
and tinned fruits in the canteens. On the credit side we had those fine
economy organisations, Salvage, Agriculture and Forestry, the effect of
which was not only to make savings at the time but also to teach the
soldier a fuller appreciation of his civil duties.
"Salvage" explained itself very clearly in its official publication:
"The world shortage of almost every kind of raw material used for
war supplies makes Salvage an important Administrative Service.
Without a well-organised and thorough Salvage system, the full
maintenance of our Force in the Field would be made difficult.
"The co-ordination of all Salvage work is in the hands of the
Controller of Salvage at G.H.Q. His duties include the inspection
of executive Salvage work, the arrangements for the disposal of
Salvage material, the investigation of methods for recovering
bye-products, and keeping of statistical records showing the amount
of material salved and disposed of and the resultant gain to the
State.
"The Salvage Organisation is not intended to take the place of, or
in any way discourage, a consistent effort on the part of every
supply department to recover for repair and re-issue its own
articles and its own empties. It is intended to supplement that
effort; to collect and put to use what would otherwise become
derelict; to ensure that nothing utilisable is allowed to go to
waste.
"To this end it is necessary to arrange, in the first place, for
the collection of unserviceable or derelict material, and, in the
second, for its disposal so that it may be brought again into use
with the least delay and to the best advantage."
[Illustration: AN ARMY POSTER.]
"Salvage," in order to secure a practical interest in its work, used to
issue statements to the soldiers showing how salved articles were
utilised. Some examples:
Clothing: Cleaned and repaired
locally. If beyond repair,
sent to the United
Kingdom as rags.
Sacking: Sent to the United
Kingdom.
Entrenching tools: Heads cleaned and
sharpened. If irreparable,
disposed of as scrap.
Steel helmets: Cleaned and relined. If
irreparable, indiarubber
pads in lining removed
and utilised for lining
serviceable helmets. Chin
strap sold as old leather,
and helmet disposed of as
scrap steel.
Rubber (gum boots, Sent to Paris for classification
tyres, etc.): and repair. If
irreparable, sent to the
United Kingdom.
Mess tins, camp Cleaned in caustic soda,
kettles, field reblocked, resoldered if
kitchen boilers: necessary, and retinned.
If irreparable, disposed
of as scrap steel.
Water-bottles: Old felt removed--bottles
cleaned, recovered with
new felt and recorked.
Old felt sent to the United
Kingdom. Water-bottles
not fit for re-issue as such
are used for packing small
quantities of oil or paint
for the Front.
Web equipment, Broken into component
cotton bandoliers, parts--dry-cleaned on
etc.: motor-driven brushes,
darned and repaired. If
irreparable, sent to the
United Kingdom as cotton
rags, after brass or metal
fittings have been removed.
Leather equipment, Broken down into component
harness, saddlery, parts, washed with
etc.: soft soap in lukewarm
water, dried in a drying
cupboard at 100 deg. F.,
treated with fish-oil and
repaired. If irreparable,
sent to United Kingdom
as old leather after brass
or metal fittings have been
removed.
Boots: Classified, repaired and
passed through fish-oil
baths. The uppers of
irreparable boots as far as
possible made into shoe
laces or heel lifts and used
for filling.
"Salvage" had to suffer much from kindly "ragging." It was known as
"Rags and Bones," and as "Swill." It was the favoured sport of the
humourist to devise new salvage dodges, one of which I recall as holding
the record for sheer asininity. It drew attention to the fact that the
little circles of paper, punched out of folios so that they could be put
on files, might be collected and sold as confetti!
But with all this "ragging," G.H.Q. had a very real respect and liking
for Brigadier-General Gibbs and his Salvage Corps, and recognised fully
the solid and practical patriotism which made them devote a passionate
interest to the recovery of solder from old tins, to collecting waste
paper, old boots, nails, horseshoes, rags and buttons. "There is
nothing of the débris of the battlefield which we cannot put to some
use," General Gibbs announced; and by his personal enthusiasm he made
Salvage collection quite a popular sport in the Army.
Some of the items of salvage value from a return will show the wide
range of the department: swill for piggeries, value 16,000 francs;
solder from old tins, value 91,000 francs; cotton waste, 14,000 francs;
tin-plate (won by unrolling old biscuit tins, etc.), 61,000 francs; old
lead, 10,000 francs; various bye-products 7,000,000 francs. The old rags
collected did a great deal to help the cloth shortage at Home, as they
made the best kind of shoddy. The old bones collected helped to find the
glycerine for explosives.
But perhaps the moral effect of the Salvage department was even more
valuable than its excellent material results. War is a wretchedly
wasteful business and must inculcate in soldiers a spirit of waste. But
in the final phase of this campaign every soldier had brought home to
him most urgently the wisdom of saving and the real value of what seemed
to be waste bye-products. Many of them must have learned the lesson and
carried it home with them to the advantage of the general community.
Agriculture was another economy organisation that we owed to the German
submarine war. It had begun in a small way towards the end of 1917;
indeed its germ was alive before then, for from the first our units had
helped the French with labour and horses during harvest time, and some
units enjoying a certain security of tenure had established flower and
vegetable gardens. But in December, 1917, the world's food position
suggested an earnest effort to utilise spare labour and spare land
within army areas in France to grow food. Major-General Ellison and Dr.
Keeble came over to G.H.Q. from the War Office, and a scheme was drawn
up to cultivate 50,000 acres of land. In January, 1918, an Agriculture
Directorate was formed under Brigadier-General the Earl of Radnor, and
search was made for a suitable area for a big farm. The quest was not a
simple one. We could not poach on land that the French might want. We
wished to avoid selecting an area which might be needed for a manoeuvre
ground for our troops in the carrying out of the next Big Push. In
seeking to avoid these two rocks we landed on a worse one. The area
selected around Roye-Nesle was the area which the Germans were going to
over-run in their Spring offensive. All unconscious of that, we began
ploughing in February, 1918. The Home authorities had supplied an
abundance of excellent machinery, and labour was quickly collected and
trained. By March 21st we had got up to a record of ploughing 300
acres per day and a total of 4,742 acres had been turned over. Then
the German came.
[Illustration: BRIG-GENERAL THE EARL OF RADNOR (Director of Agricultural
Production)]
By a fine feat of organisation and courage the Agriculture Directorate
saved most of its machinery. Some of the agricultural tractors came in
useful as aids to the heavy artillery in the retreat. Others, charging
for home at their best speed, were mistaken for German Tanks and in one
or two cases fired on by our troops.
Despite that unlucky experience with the big farm, Agriculture put to
its credit some useful work. It had promoted vegetable gardens in Base
Camps, and the total area of those gardens was 7,496 acres and their
products did much to help out the rations. Soon, too, "Agriculture"
found that though it had not sown on its big farm it might still reap in
other quarters. The German onrush had brought a great area of French
cultivated land within army areas, some of it actually within the zone
of fire. Since every ear of wheat was precious, Agriculture organised to
save this part of the French harvest, and actually reaped the product of
18,133 acres. It was gallant work, done mostly by fighting men in the
intervals between their turns in the trenches. Sometimes the area to be
reaped was under the fire and the observation of the enemy, and the crop
was cut at night. The enemy used gas shells to prevent this work, and
the reapers had to work in gas masks. One area of six acres of corn was
so close to the enemy trenches that the idea of saving it seemed a
desperate one. But volunteers were found, and one night seventeen men
with scythes cleared the whole six acres, in the three hours of darkness
that were available. I own that such acts of heroism impress me more
than deeds done in the heat and ardour of battle.
In the Autumn of 1918 the enemy were in full run for the Rhine, and the
Agriculture Directorate resolved to make another attempt at cultivating
a big farm. An area of 20,000 acres was chosen, this time near Corbie.
The site had been desolated by the Somme battles, and the work of
preliminary clearing (which was done by Prisoners of War) was the
hardest part of its preparation for agriculture. But when ploughing
began with tractors other unexpected difficulties cropped up. The big
armour-piercing shell with delay-action fuse, when it missed the
emplacement for which it was designed and struck the ground, penetrated
to a great depth, exploded there, and often formed a big subterranean
cavern without showing any crater on the surface. A heavy tractor going
over one of these caverns would break through and disappear. Digging it
out would then be a laborious task.
When the Armistice came the Corbie farm was, in accordance with the
wishes of the French Government, passed over to it. So the Agriculture
Directorate never got in a big crop of its own sowing. But it had done
excellent work on its farm gardens and in saving the French crop within
the battle area.
Forestry was another department which we owed to the German submarine
war. In 1916 shipping losses were already so great as gravely to
prejudice the prospects of bringing in timber from Scandinavia. It was
Scandinavia which felt the earliest effects from the submarine campaign;
Norway, especially, which with fine courage had refused to allow its
mercantile shipping to take refuge in harbour.
The Norwegian paper _Tidens Tegn_ published an optimistic statistical
review of the position as regards Germany's submarine war on October
9th, 1917. This, covering a wide period and dealing with a mercantile
service which the German pursued with particular venom, attracted great
attention at the time. Pointing out that for the week ending October 9th
not one Norwegian vessel was sunk by German submarines, the _Tidens
Tegn_ commented that this was the first time for a year that such a
thing could be said. It gave then in detail the record of U-boats'
ravages on Norwegian shipping from May, 1917, until October, 1917, the
record showing a steady decrease of losses. But the sad truth was that
the Norwegian shipping had suffered such terrible losses that there was
not much left of it to destroy.
As early as November, 1916, owing to the difficulties in getting
Scandinavian timber, we had decided to draw our timber supplies chiefly
from the French forests and from Switzerland, Spain, and Great Britain.
Our Forestry Department started with a Canadian lumber-men's unit.
Brig.-Gen. Lord Lovat was Director. In October, 1917, a fresh agreement
was made with the French Government for the exploitation of French
forests for the benefit of the Allied Armies. The magnitude of the
operations can be gauged from the fact that the Forestry Directorate
grew to 425 officers and 11,000 of other ranks, and employed in addition
about 6,000 prisoners of war. But perhaps the public, with Whitehall
departments in its mind's eye, may object that employment figures are no
sound indication of work accomplished. But the production figures admit
of no cavil. From November, 1917, to November, 1918, the Forestry
Department produced from French forests 2,065,074 tons of timber. This
was four-fifths of the total needs of the Army. Reference will be found
in a subsequent chapter to our shortage of barbed wire in the Winter and
Spring of 1918. Forestry did a great deal to fill the gap, producing
90,000 tons of defensive pickets between February and May, 1918.
[Illustration: AT FORESTRY H. Q., THE KING AND A MASCOT]
In addition to its productive work Forestry was a valuable Directorate
in the teaching of economy in forest exploitation. If the lessons it
inculcated are not wasted, British forestry should benefit greatly in
the future.
* * * * *
Salvage, Agriculture, and Forestry were the three chief "Economy
Directorates" of G.H.Q.; and if their spirit can be carried back into
civil life by the demobilised soldier it will prove of real value in
making up for the economic wastage of the war, vast as that has been. I
wonder if those people who are celebrating peace with a long-drawn-out
carnival of slackness and extravagance recognise as clearly as we were
made to do at G.H.Q. in 1918 the extent to which the world is short of
everything! Of course it is difficult for those who are not accustomed
to give close attention to the problems of production to appreciate how
deeply a world war of four years' duration affects every industry; and
especially so when on one side the war was waged on the principle of
destroying everything that could be got at, whether it was military or
civil property, whether it was an enemy or a neutral possession.
Germany, making a ruthless and unlimited war on "sink without trace"
lines, forced practically the whole world to band against her in
self-defence; and over practically the whole world labour and capital
were largely withdrawn from production for purposes of defence.
In the days when the builders of Jerusalem worked with the trowel in one
hand and the sword in the other, it may be concluded that progress was
slow. For years a great deal of the world had the rifle in one hand and
the gas mask in the other, figuratively or literally. It could do little
in the way of normal production, because its chief energies were taken
up with defence.
In regard to any industry, trace step by step the effect of a war such
as this war. The first and most palpable loss is that of the labour
directly withdrawn for armies and navies. That would be serious enough
if it were the sole loss. But it was only one of many losses. A modern
industry depends as much almost on capital as on labour. Capital was
withdrawn from production and devoted to destruction at an appalling
rate. That meant that industry was starved of machinery, of
communications, of nutriment generally. Like a human body deprived of
proper nourishment, it began to suffer from debility. Every neglect to
replace machinery, to repair roads or to open up necessary new roads,
every draft, too, made on the administrative staff, is just as much a
weakening of an industry as the direct loss of hand workers. A healthy
industry should be able to withstand for some time these losses, just as
a healthy human body should be able to withstand some period of
privation and even of actual starvation. But there is a limit to the
power of endurance in both cases. It is quite clear that in many world
industries (and most particularly in those industries which are
connected with the great staples of human comfort, the food industries,
the clothing industries, the transport industries) that limit was
reached long before the war was over, and the world began to suffer from
a constitutional enfeeblement of its powers of production; something
more serious than the temporary interruption of production, something
which makes now a restoration of prosperity difficult and tedious.
All this is so true as to be truism. But it does not seem to be so
clearly recognised by the people who stayed at home as by the people who
went to war. Perhaps as the returned soldier makes his influence felt
more strongly he will have his value in bringing the nation to a sense
of the duty of economy. It was not possible to have two views about the
need of economy when you had to forage the battlefield for old bits of
metal and rags.
CHAPTER X.
THE COMFORTS OF THE FORCE--SPIRITUAL AND OTHER.
The Padres--The semi-religious organisations--E.F.C. Comforts--Studying
the Fighting man--The Great Beer Save.
"There has never been an army that had more chaplains, or that needed
them less." That was the verdict of one American observer on the British
Army--a sound one. The British Army was notably well supplied with
chaplains--"padres" as the soldier knows them; but this was not in
answer to a call for spiritual leaders to combat a special degree of
wickedness. Quite the contrary. The Army was a very well-behaved,
sober-minded institution on the whole, as if it recognised the solemnity
of its task and fitted its conduct accordingly. To this fact the French
population can bear witness. The French villagers among whom the British
soldiers have been quartered came to a view of them which was once
eloquently expressed: "They are lions in the trenches and lambs in the
villages."
So the padre went out for duty with the troops having no task of leading
a forlorn hope against ramping wickedness. His trouble was rather in the
other direction. "I don't see how I can have the 'front' to preach to
these men," said a padre attached to an Artillery Division one day: "I'd
rather they preached to me."
It really was a difficult task--that of the padre at the Front, and only
the best type of clergyman made a success of it. His attitude to life
had to be manly, his character brave. But the padre who ran risks just
for the sake of running them was often more of a bother than a help. The
best padre's spirit was that of the careful soldier who will face any
danger that comes in the way of duty, but will not go looking for danger
in a spirit of bravado. The padre could make two mistakes. He could take
things too easily and just be a parson available to conduct Divine
service when he was wanted to; or he could try to do too much, to
interfere too much and become a nuisance in the fighting line. The good
padre struck the happy mean. He had the knack of being there when he was
wanted, but he recognised that the Army's first duty was to fight, and
he did not get in the way of its fighting activities. Above all he did
not try to arrange a church parade for the morning after tired troops
from the line had reached rest billets.
One of the most successful padres in France was known as "the Lost
Sheep." He had a Mess to which he was properly attached and this Mess
was responsible for having a comfortable billet for him. But he was
rarely "At home." He wandered all over the district, picking up a meal
here and there and sleeping wherever he found himself after dinner. At
first it was thought to be fecklessness on his part. As a matter of fact
it was artfulness. Moving about as he did, taking a meal and a bed
anywhere, he got to know everybody and found out who needed him as
padre.
The actual organisation of the padre service was a little difficult for
the layman to understand. The "Principal Chaplain" with the Forces was a
Presbyterian clergyman, the Rev. J. M. Simms. Under him came all the
padres, including Roman Catholic priests, except the padres of the
Church of England, who had a separate organisation under a Deputy
Chaplain General, Bishop Gwynne, who had been Bishop of Khartoum before
the war. What was the exact reason for the division of authority I could
never quite make out. There was no ill-feeling at all or jealousy
between the various padres. The Principal Chaplain had his headquarters
at Montreuil and was a regular visitor to the Officers' Club. The Deputy
Chaplain General had his headquarters at Paris Plage.
Of the typical padre it was said that he was responsible for at least
as many sports meetings in rest camps as Divine services, but was a
genuinely spiritual man withal. There was credited to one the aphorism
that the men did so much worshipful work in the trenches that in rest
camps the first thing to be rightly thought of was relaxation.
G.H.Q. Staff I fear were poor Church-goers. The Commander-in-Chief set a
good example by attending Divine Service almost every Sunday at
Montreuil, but most of the Staff Officers followed the maxim "_laborare
est orare_" and were at their desks on Sunday. The padres understood the
position and there were no reproaches.
At meals at the Officers' Club there were always a few padres. We were
not expected to make too much concession to "the cloth" in the way of
conversation, and the average padre stood his chaffing with the best of
them.
I noted one, who had a rather pontifical manner (though he was a
thoroughly good fellow at heart), take a hard hit in a sporting fashion.
The conversation had turned on Lord Roberts' campaign before the war to
try to arouse the British people to a sense of the imminence of the war
and the necessity of preparation. The padre blundered in with:
"It seems to me that Lord Roberts and his friends must have been
singularly lacking in clearness of argument and persuasiveness seeing
that, knowing the truth as they did yet they were not able to convince
the people."
"Yes," retorted an officer, "arguing on the same lines, quite a number
of excellent gentlemen seem to have been singularly lacking in clearness
of argument and persuasiveness for nearly 2,000 years, seeing that,
knowing the greatest truth of all, they have not yet been able to
convince the world."
The padre took it in the right spirit and owned that it is not
necessarily a reflection on a preacher if his hearers will not listen.
Lord Roberts' name was venerated by most officers, and the Army was glad
that when the time came for the good old man to lay down his sword it
was from among old comrades at G.H.Q. that he passed away.
* * * * *
In addition to the padre service the British soldier in the field had a
great number of semi-spiritual organisations looking after him. These
followed a sound rule, generally, of providing hot coffee and harmless
recreation as the best missionary work. G.H.Q. recognised the Y.M.C.A.,
the Church Army and the Salvation Army as semi-religious agencies, and
all these bodies did excellent work in providing rest huts and reading
and recreation rooms for the troops, and thus keeping them out of
mischief when they had idle times. Satan, when he came roaming round,
found the British Army well dug in, and plenty of wire out.
To some proposed forms of guarding the welfare of the soldier G.H.Q. had
to refuse sanction. There were many cranks with very curious notions on
this point. Perhaps the most remarkable proposal was that which came
from a lady, the goodness of whose intentions was obvious but who had "a
marked moral strabismus," as a Scots doctor pawkily observed. She wanted
to form an organisation of ladies (and said she could do so) to meet
soldiers at the ports of disembarkation and take them to homes where
would be provided all the comforts of domesticity. I believe that some
such organisation once actually existed in an Eastern country whilst it
was at war. But so far as the B.E.F. was concerned it had to be
discouraged.
The last line of entrenchments against ennui and discomfort was provided
by that wonderful organisation the Expeditionary Force Canteens. It
provided for officers and men cheap shops, good rest and recreation
centres, and for officers excellent hotels. The officer thus had never
to wander to strange places. From the Expeditionary Force Canteens
during the greater part of the time you could buy cigars, cigarettes,
chocolate, sweets, all kinds of canned goods and so on, duty free, and
at prices far lower than those of the London shops. Whisky and beer
could be bought, too, duty free, under some restrictions. The E.F.C.
was, in short, the great comfort-bringer to the soldier at the front. I
say comfort-bringer, for all necessities were supplied by rations.
Just consider what Tommy got from the country he was serving: an ample
supply of meat (fresh meat in the main), and bacon and cheese, of bread,
and of biscuit; a fair supply of vegetables, of butter, of jam, of tea,
milk and sugar; a moderate supply of tobacco and cigarettes; a small
ration of rum. I know from my own experience that one could live
excellently on the men's rations. Nothing was actually needed to
supplement them. But comforts, well, they were comforting; and the
E.F.C. by bringing them almost up to the front trenches (as they did)
helped materially to win the war.
The Expeditionary Force Canteens organisation was formed early in 1915
for the supply of canteen facilities to the troops in the field. Its
operations commenced in France, but were subsequently extended to all
theatres of war. The undertaking was from its commencement conducted by
Sir Alexander W. Prince and Colonel F. Benson, both of whom
patriotically gave their services. In due course the organisation took
on various other functions, but its canteen business alone made it by
far the biggest shopping concern in the world. The "supplies and
shipping" department of the E.F.C. had for canteens alone an average
annual turnover of approximately 500,000,000 francs. From three to four
thousand lines appeared on the stock sheets, ranging from a packet of
pins to officers' equipment.
The tonnage handled was enormous, and during the month of November,
1918, it reached nearly twelve thousand tons, representing 320,000
cases. But the record week was that ending March 16th, 1918, just prior
to the great German offensive, when 3,643 tons of canteen supplies were
landed, and a turnover amounting to 10,586,407 francs was reached. The
tonnage off-loaded for the year 1918 was 121,000 tons, and comprised
over three million packages.
Here is a table of figures of total sales at canteens and depôts:--
Half-year ended Francs.
June, 1915 3,283,641
December, 1915 18,207,427
June, 1916 48,629,071
December, 1916 104,288,430
June, 1917 150,786,105
December, 1917 191,063,817
June, 1918 223,931,847
December, 1918 223,247,454
-----------
Total to end of December, 1918 963,437,792
-----------
The E.F.C. was in business for the good of the troops, not to make
profits for anyone. All profits that were earned will go back to the
soldiers. But profits were kept to a strict minimum. By a happy decision
prices for the same goods were the same on every Front. You bought a tin
of tobacco at Baghdad for the same price as at Boulogne. Thus the
soldier on the more comfortable nearer-home Fronts was able to feel that
the little percentage of profit charged to him was helping his mate in
Mesopotamia.
Yet another fine feature of the E.F.C. work was that it served the man
in the front line first and the man at the Base second. In 1917-1918 the
shipping position was so bad that economies had to be effected in every
possible direction. E.F.C. supplies had to suffer with the rest, and the
complaint came that what supplies did come over were largely absorbed at
Base and on Lines of Communication, and the men in the front line got
very little. The Q.M.G. got rid of that complaint very simply. An order
went out that: (1) certain luxuries which were in very short supply
should go only to front area canteens and not at all to the Base; (2)
other goods should go in the proportion of four to front areas and one
to the Base. As a consequence our Montreuil canteens were very poorly
stocked, for G.H.Q. of course did not count as a front area. But the
simple justice of the step was recognised.
In 1918, the Home Government was forced to the conclusion that the
shipping position was so bad that no more beer could be consigned to the
troops. Beer was a very bulky article and its shipping space must be
saved. G.H.Q. did not like the prospect of stopping the soldiers' beer
just at a time when they had plenty of other troubles. Perhaps G.H.Q.
remembered a much earlier B.E.F. in Flanders in the reign of Henry
VIII., which did very badly until that great War Minister, Cardinal
Wolsey, took the matter of supplies in hand and saw that the Army was
well supplied not only with arrows but with beef and beer. Thereafter
that early B.E.F. retrieved its reputation. It occurred to G.H.Q.,
B.E.F., 1918, that whilst beer is a very bulky article, most of the bulk
is water. Accordingly the Q.M.G. took over, in part or in whole,
breweries in our Army areas and arranged to brew beer locally, importing
only from England the malt and the hops, which were not particularly
bulky.
I do not know whether the decision of the Home Government was in part a
concession to teetotalism and in part only governed by shipping
considerations. If so the teetotallers were disappointed. The British
Army in 1918 continued to number beer among its comforts.
On the whole ours was the most comforted and comfortable Army in the
Field, as all _liaison_ officers from allied units agreed. The
Americans were as well off in most respects, but being a "dry" Army
interfered somewhat with the comfort of its majority. The average
American was not a teetotaller and did not object to wine and beer or
even an occasional whisky. At his own canteens he had to be. The French
of course always had a wine ration, but in other respects their
"comforts" were not up to our standard. The privilege that was extended
to French _liaison_ officers of dealing at our canteens was very highly
appreciated.
CHAPTER XI.
THE LABOUR AUXILIARIES.
The queer ways of the Chinks--How to bury a Chinaman properly--The
Q.M.A.A.C.s and their fine record--Other types of Labour
auxiliaries--The Labour Directorate.
The Great War revived, to a degree that few dream of, methods of very
old campaigns, when the hero had his attendant myrmidons and the Spartan
foot soldier his helots. Study a "ration strength" return of the B.E.F.,
France, 1918, and discover how the actual fighting men in trench or
gun-pit had to be supported not only by Base soldiers but by British
non-combatant labour companies, by French civilian labour companies, by
Q.M.A.A.C.s, by prisoner-of-war labour companies, by Indian, West
Indian, Fijian, and Chinese labour companies. It was a big business,
this organisation of the labour behind the fighting area.
Chinese labour was of very notable help to the British Army. At its best
it was the most efficient and hard-working force imaginable. At its
worst it was at least a good source of fun. The Chinaman came over to
the war with very definite ideas of making as good a thing out of it as
possible. "I sell my labour" was his formula in signing the contract,
and, though he probably would not recognise as his own the old British
law formula _caveat emptor_, that was the principle on which he acted.
If the buyer of his labour was fool enough to pay the price and not get
the work that was the buyer's look-out.
Every Chinese coolie on arrival (as we soon found out) was "put wise" by
the representative of his secret society, his "Tong," that "this is a
good place. You have only to pretend to work." He acted on that, and
unless the people in charge knew how to deal with Chinese, so little was
done as to make the most finished British exponent of "ca-canny" go
green with envy. But, given an officer who knew his business, knew how
to get the Chinese headmen to get the Chinese coolies to work, and the
results were splendid.
The Chinaman knew that by his contract he was not to suffer war risks,
that he was not supposed to work under shell-fire, and he was soon
sufficiently advanced to interpret an occasional air bombardment as
"shell-fire," and to give it as a reason for demanding more pay. As a
rule he was willing to take risks, if he were paid extra. When sick or
wounded he was a great nuisance, for if a Chinaman died of sickness
whilst in charge of the white man the conclusion was that he had been
done to death. Ordinarily a sick Chinaman demobilised two
workers--himself and some member of his own secret society who had to
accompany him to hospital to see that all was fair.
The most earnest effort was therefore made to keep the Chinaman from
dying, not only from ordinary motives of humanity, but because as a
corpse he was an even greater nuisance. A British soldier might be
buried in a blanket, but the Chinese dead had to have wooden coffins,
and their graveyards had to be chosen with great care--preferably in a
valley with a stream running through it. All this to satisfy the
spiritual world of the Chinese, which seems to be very exigent in such
matters. The official instructions regarding Chinese graves stated: "The
ideal site to secure repose and drive away evil spirits is on sloping
ground with a stream below, or gully down which water always or
occasionally passes. The grave should not be parallel to the N.S.E. or
W. This is specially important to Chinese Mohammedans. It should be
about four feet deep, with the head towards the hill and the feet
towards the water. A mound of earth about two feet high is piled over
the grave."
In matters of finance the Chinaman was also a little bothersome. He had
to have his pay right down on the nail; he distrusted any white man's
savings-bank or any system of deferred pay. In time Chinese
savings-banks were instituted, and these solved the difficulty that the
Chinaman would not let the white paymaster keep his money for him, and
if he had it in personal custody gambled it away.
Keener even than his passion for gambling was the Chinaman's passion for
decoration. Was it in a sense of real fun on his part or was it an
accident that his taste for decoration culminated in the two "grand
passions"--an Australian hat and a Scotsman's kilt? If either of these
came within his reach the Chinaman knew real bliss. One Chinaman who
managed to get hold of both at once, and paraded a Base town in their
joint glory for a full half-hour was the legendary hero of all the
Chinese coolies in France. Of course to be in possession of an
unauthorised article of military equipment was an offence, and the
Chinaman going out in a kilt or an Australian hat, or a general's
red-haloed cap, knew that he was in for severe punishment. That was no
deterrent if his ingenuity could secure, by theft or purchase, such
glory. As often as it did the Chinaman was quite willing to stand the
subsequent racket. One Chinese coolie used to light up a quarter of
Boulogne with a decoration that challenged military discipline
successfully. He had secured one of those brass basins still used in
places as barbers' signs, had fixed this on his ordinary coolie hat,
polished it resplendently, and sported it with Celestial pride. His was
the brassiest hat of any brass hat in France; but the basin was not an
article of military equipment, and authority decided to wink at it. In a
hot sun you had to wink with both eyes.
Discipline was good with the Chinese coolies if the controlling officers
knew their business and took care to "save face" of the headmen of the
gangs. An officer had to see that the headman did not fool him or
ill-treat the coolies and then to back up the headman always. If the
coolies got to think that the headman was out of favour with the white
boss nothing could be done with them. In matters of prohibitions the
Chinese language showed a strange inadequacy. It was decided to forbid
smoking in labour camps, and a notice "Smoking is Prohibited," was
printed in English, German, and Chinese, to be affixed in the compounds.
After some months a distinguished visitor, who was (or thought he was)
skilled in the Chinese language, pointed out to high authority that the
literal translation of the Chinese notice was "Do not get caught
smoking." The educated Chinese who had drawn up the notice originally
was sent for. He blandly insisted that that was the only way to say
"Smoking is Prohibited," in Chinese, and that the Chinese coolie would
understand nothing else.
On the whole the Chinaman was a cheerful soul. He organised his own
theatrical companies and enjoyed those interminable Chinese operas which
are familiar to travellers in the East and to visitors to the Chinese
quarters of American or Australian cities.
The "Chink" gambled as much as the regulations allowed him to. But he
could stand up to a hard day's work with constant cheerfulness, and,
apart from his craze for some prohibited military decoration, contrived
to make his uniform picturesque enough. The barber was an important unit
of every camp, for Chinese head-dressing is a matter of complicated
ritual.
Taking one consideration with another, Chinese labour in France was a
success. It released many scores of thousands of men for the fighting
line. If the Germans had not thrown in their hand at the time they did,
it is probable that another 100,000 coolies would have been recruited in
China for France, though most other types of coloured labour were being
dispensed with as not being worth while.
Chinese labour has a way of cropping up in British history. It might
have lost the Mother Country a whole continent of colonies at one time,
when Sir Henry Parkes, a leonine Norfolk peasant who had become Prime
Minister for New South Wales, dared Great Britain to veto Australian
exclusion of Chinese immigrants. Later it loomed, with vast
possibilities of mischief, over South African history. In the Great War
Chinese labour appeared again, but this time with no sinister threat of
trouble, but very helpful in matters of railway-building and
ship-building, and lightening, with a touch of Celestial humour, the
grim business of putting the German in his place.
The Labour Directorate had control not only of Chinese Labour but of all
other non-combatant working units, except the W.A.A.C.s (or Q.M.A.A.C.s
as they came to be called when, as a reply to base gossip about their
morals, Queen Mary took nominal command of the corps and they became
Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps). Distinctly cruel--though it was
probably not meant to be cruel and was only thoughtlessness--was the
gossip about the W.A.A.C.s. According to some London scandal-mongers a
very large proportion of the Corps qualified for a maternity hospital
almost as soon as they got to France. As a matter of fact the standard
of conduct among them was very high. They represented at least the
average of British womanhood, probably they were ahead of the average,
and it would be a libel on our race to discredit them with a charge of
looseness.
Nor was it a fact that the W.A.A.C.s were in a position unusually open
to temptation; it was quite the contrary. They were busy. The soldiers
among whom they worked were busy, and it wasn't a case of the Devil
having idle hands at his mercy. Further, the system of supervision was
well thought out and excellently administered. The W.A.A.C.s had better
guardianship than in the average British home. They lived in
settlements, with their own recreation rooms. These settlements were
strictly out of bounds for soldiers. All private houses, cafés,
restaurants, etc., were "out of bounds" to the W.A.A.C.s. Nor could a
W.A.A.C. "walk out" with a soldier in her leisure time except by
permission of her officer.
At G.H.Q. there were very few W.A.A.C. clerks or telephone orderlies;
but there was a little band of W.A.A.C. waitresses at the Officers'
Club. A better set of girls it would be hard to find, and it is hardly
necessary to say that they were always treated with respect and courtesy
by the officers. A saying at G.H.Q. was that if you wanted to be sent
away suddenly there were two short courses to that undesirable end: one,
to curse your general to his face in public, the other to be caught
winking at a W.A.A.C. G.H.Q. did not wink at the W.A.A.C.s. We had too
much respect for them, too much gratitude for the spirit of
sportsmanship and patriotism that led them to come out to France to lead
a dull and laborious life for our comfort. It is difficult to imagine
what a touch of "England, Home and Beauty" those deft young women gave
after experience of soldier orderlies as waiters.
From personal knowledge I can only speak of the W.A.A.C.s at G.H.Q. But
I had the best of means of judging their general standard of conduct
throughout France. In case of a lapse from grace a W.A.A.C. was retired
from the Corps, her uniform was withdrawn and she had a grant of £5 to
enable her to buy a civilian costume. There were not many cases of that
£5 being paid.
But the W.A.A.C.s, as I have said, did not come under the Labour
Directorate but under their own Administrator. Every one else whose job
was to work rather than to fight did, and that made "Labour" an
extraordinarily interesting department. It had under its control:
(_a_) The Labour Corps, including:
(_i_) Labour Companies.
(_ii_) Divisional Employment Companies.
(_iii_) Area Employment Companies.
(_b_) Canadian Labour Battalions.
(_c_) Middlesex (Alien) Labour Companies.
(_d_) South African Native Labour Corps.
(_e_) Cape coloured Battalion.
(_f_) Egyptian Labour Corps.
(_g_) Chinese Labour Corps.
(_h_) Fijian Labour Detachment.
(_i_) Indian Labour Corps.
(_j_) Non-Combatant Corps.
(_k_) Prisoner of War Companies.
(_l_) French and Belgian Civilian Labour.
The core of the organisation was British loyal labour, men who were too
old or too decrepit to fight but who "did their bit" behind the lines,
making roads or working at various Army jobs. These were excellent stout
fellows, and as they did not object to taking the risk of death for
their country, they could be, and were, employed in areas of danger.
Another type of British Labour, not so admirable, were the Conscientious
Objectors. A few groups of these were employed in France as burial
parties, etc. Yet another type was known as the Middlesex
Contingent--why that county should have been associated with them I know
not. They were men British-born but of German parentage, whose loyalty
was suspect. They could not be trusted in the army; they were used for
some types of labour, but were not allowed near ammunition dumps or
other points where they might do mischief.
Second in order of merit came French and Belgian civilian labour, men
too old or decrepit for the fighting line, but willing to work for a
wage. It was a condition of their employment that they should not be
stationed within range of long-distance shell fire, but this condition
was sometimes relaxed at their own wish and with the consent of the
French Government. At first the British Army insured these French
workers against accident, illness, and death through the French State
Insurance Department. Subsequently it was found more economical to
insure them directly.
German prisoners of war labour was under the Labour Directorate, and in
the organisation of it some very good work was done. Prisoners were very
plentiful from 1916 onwards, and the Labour Directorate, when a new push
was mooted, made its plans to have skeleton prisoners-of-war companies
ready to be filled by the new prisoners as they arrived. I think the
record was in one case when three days after some Germans arrived at our
"cages," they were at work on the roads at the rear of the Army. It was
the law that prisoners of war should not be employed anywhere near the
firing line, and on the British side this law was very strictly
observed.
My impression of the Germans as road labourers was not very favourable.
They seemed to loaf as much as they could. But some of the German
prisoners of the artisan class did excellent work in our various shops
and factories at Base. In tailoring shops, motor repair shops, etc.,
there were many German prisoners who seemed to take a delight in
intelligent industry. German prisoners were very well treated and got on
very well with their guards.
Now to the various classes of coloured labour. The Chinese I have
already dealt with. They were quite the most satisfactory on the whole.
The Indian labour was willing enough but did not stand the climate so
well. Kaffir labour proved on the whole unsatisfactory, and so did
Egyptian labour. A West Indian contingent did fairly good work. A model
lot were the Fijians, all volunteers (and all Christians, by the way),
and wonderfully good stevedores. Unfortunately there were very few of
them and they did not stand the climate well. One of the Fijian Labour
Corps left his studies at Oxford University to join up.
The Labour organisation had two main objects:
(a) To release the fighting soldier for his legitimate work.
(b) To assist the Services and Departments to carry out their
tasks.
Nine hours was the normal working day, exclusive of the time occupied
for meals and for going to and from the place of work. If the distance
from the place of parade to the work was more than 1-1/2 miles, the time
taken to march the excess distance was deducted from the hours of work.
For labour of low medical category the normal working day was eight
hours.
Excellent work was done by the Labour Corps. Its _morale_ was carefully
studied and it was part of the instructions to officers that:
All ranks should have briefly explained to them the object of the
work, for what, and by whom, it will be used, what purpose it will
serve, and, especially, that all the work is being done for the
prosecution of the war and is not merely a "fatigue." A few minutes
spent in rousing the men's interest in their work is usually time
well spent. A healthy spirit of emulation should be created by
pointing out the quantity of work of any kind which should be done
per day, and the amount done by other and better Companies. Above
all the men must be made to understand that whether they are
working on time, or on task work, no slacking can be allowed. The
men in the fighting line depend on the men of the Labour Corps to
keep them supplied with all they require.
Our Allies are just as anxious for victory as we are. The French
and the Belgians have suffered more than we have, but, in spite of
it, never complain. Hence they should receive every consideration
at our hands. As we are in their countries we should respect their
customs and wishes as much as we can. In all our relations with any
of our Allies, it is obviously desirable for us to be polite and
courteous in our dealings with them. It must be borne in mind that
every misunderstanding or unpleasantness tends to weaken our
alliance and to help the enemy.
The Labour Directorate, with many different races to manage, their
religions and food habits to study, had one of the difficult tasks of
the war; and carried it out on the whole very well. The chiefs of the
directorate in my time at G.H.Q. were Colonel (now General) E. G. Wace,
Lieut.-Col. S. G. L. Bradley, and Lieut.-Col. H. A. H. Newington, with
Colonel Fairfax as Adviser, Chinese Labour, and Colonel Pritchard as
Adviser, South African Labour. The staff was about equally divided
between big business men and typical Oxford men. It was always a
pleasure at dinner to sit at the same table with the "Labour" people.
They hunted, or rather dined, in couples as a rule, a leading light of
the commercial world pairing off with one of the "Oxford group." So one
could always reckon on good talk and argument from opposite points of
view.
At the summit of its strength the Labour Corps mustered 387,000, a great
Army in itself, and it had representatives of almost every European
nationality, Chinese, West Indians, Pacific Islanders, Kaffirs, Zulus,
Burmese, Egyptians, Maltese and almost every Indian race including
Nagas, Pathans, Chins, Manipuris, Bengalis and Santals. And the Labour
Corps' patriotism cost it dear at times; for sometimes it had over a
thousand casualties in a month.
[Illustration: Photo by Bassano Ltd.
BRIG-GENERAL E. G. WACE (Controller of Labour)]
CHAPTER XII.
G.H.Q. AND THE "NEW ARMY."
What G.H.Q. thought of the "Temporaries"--Old prejudices and their
reason--The material of the "New Armies"--Some "New Army" Officers who
did not play the game--The Regular Army Trade Union accepts its
"dilutees."
What did G.H.Q., whose view may be taken as the authoritative one, think
in 1918 of what used to be known as "the New Army?" G.H.Q. in 1918
represented in the main the pick of the old Regular Army. Nearly all its
senior officers were "Regulars." The majority of the junior officers
were "Temporaries." What was the feeling between them after the mutual
knowledge that the years had brought?
Often I talked this over at dinner, sometimes with men whose opinions I
had known in 1914 and 1915. There was H----, for instance, who, in those
early years of the war, was an unsparing critic of the "New Army" which
was, he used to say then, slovenly and a makeshift sort of show and
could not salute properly, and suffered, and always would suffer, from
the "non-military mind."
The non-military mind, according to him, was an affliction which was
born in one, like original sin, and could only be exorcised by going to
a Military Academy and becoming a Regular Soldier. I used to be very
meek and long-suffering with him (he was senior to me) and only
occasionally mentioned people like Blake (a civilian whom Cromwell made
a General, and afterwards an Admiral, and a right good General and a
right better Admiral he was) or non-militarily-minded men like Botha and
Smuts.
But to what argument I did venture upon he was impervious. I noted that
fact for him and quoted it as, perhaps, a characteristic of the mind
which was _not_ non-military. And altogether we had some charming
quarrels, as amusing, almost, as those of old men in their clubs, who if
they could not bicker could not digest their dinners, and then where
would they be?
Now H---- takes it all back. He is at last convinced that the New Army
is all right. Of course it is. Why should it not be? Is not the British
Empire all right? And is not the New Army a sort of Representative
Assembly of the British Empire?
G.H.Q. in 1918 saw clearly enough that never before in the history of
any Empire was such splendid raw material for an Army gathered together
as in Great Britain in 1914-1918. There were things to offend dainty
tastes in the recruiting campaign of which the New Armies were the
harvest. But nothing can spoil the value of the result, that many
hundreds of thousands of the best men who ever served in an Army joined
the colours.
Judge the New Army by the standard of the "Regulars."
The soldiers of the first Expeditionary Force (the "Regulars," the men
who, despite the booming of certain special units, did the greater part
of the heroic work of Lord French's command up to Loos) have proved
themselves so nobly that it is possible to say now, without fear of
offence, that if they had been judged as individuals before they joined
the Army, they might not have been held to represent the best average of
the British people. There is nothing ungracious in saying this now, when
even the furious and blinded foe is compelled to admit their excellent
virtue. The men of the old Regular Army themselves would admit almost
unanimously that it was the Army that made them, and that they
occasionally took the King's shilling for lack of prospect of another
shilling. The people of England must confess, on their part, that they
rather boasted of "not being a military nation" and were content with an
army system which did not seek to levy fairly upon the average manhood
of the nation but trusted chiefly to the patriotism and instinct for
rule of an officer class.
The material of the ranks was not bad material, nor even poor material.
The British blood is a good brew. For it has tapped the most adventurous
and hardiest veins of the Celt, the Anglo-Saxon, the Scandinavian, and
the Norman; and this British blood learned by some subtle alchemy to
draw always fresh savour and wholesomeness from the girdling sea. Put
out of consideration a few criminal degenerates, and the mentally
emasculated politicians who used to preach the gospel of no nationalism,
and no British stock is actually bad stock, as can be seen from the
superb young nations that have sprung, partly from its lees, in the
Dominions.
But the raw material of the New Armies represented a great improvement
on the raw material from which was built up the old army. Other things
being equal, therefore, the New Armies could be expected to beat the
Expeditionary Force. Other things, unfortunately, were not equal, such
as officers' education and time of training. But in all the
circumstances the New Armies, after some blooding, might be expected to
attain, and actually did attain, the high standard set in the field by
the British Regular.
The material of the New Armies was such as no recruiting sergeant in
1913 could have hoped to secure. In a fairly typical batch of recruits
which I had to take over one day were engine-fitters, brass finishers,
coal miners, agricultural labourers, gamekeepers, two foremen, one
compositor, one valet, one pugilist (a champion), one stud groom, one
cycle mechanic, one clerk. The wages of these men before they joined was
high, and only two out of thirty-eight had been of the "usually
unemployed" class. Among these men, accustomed to the discipline of the
workshop, many of them with experience as gangers or foremen, possible
non-commissioned officers were sprinkled thickly. I have seen batches of
recruits for the old army just when they joined, and they looked usually
rather forlorn--men accustomed to be unemployed, men at a loose end,
disappointed men, with just a sprinkling of eager men taking to the
soldier's life for the love of it. Only after three months of the
wholesome life, the wholesome food, the kindly discipline of the Army,
would they fairly compare in physique, manhood, and intelligence with
the recruits of the New Armies.
A well-marked stream coming to join the flood of New Army recruits was
that of British men from overseas. The British blood is strangely
responsive to the magic of the seas. Send a careless young Englishman
abroad to Australia, South Africa, or to some foreign land such as China
or the Argentine, and the salt air of the seas as he traverses them
seems to set tingling in his blood a new keenness of Imperial pride. His
outlook comes closer to that of the Elizabethan Englishman. Perhaps it
is from the first actual consciousness of what it means to be one of a
nation which is mistress of the seas. Perhaps one must seek deeper for a
more transcendental explanation, finding it in something analogous to
the Greek myth of the giant who renewed his strength whenever he touched
Mother Earth.
Let the reason be what it may, the fact is clear enough. Of British men
abroad--I speak now of British born, not of those born citizens of the
Dominions--one can dare the guess that ninety-nine out of a hundred
turned their thoughts at once to the joy of service on the outbreak of
this war.
In a city of China I know there were 18 young Englishmen in various
commercial houses. Of them 17 came away home to the war. In most cases
it meant abandoning their positions and all their future prospects.
Money was scarce, and the little band travelled steerage. To realise how
great a sacrifice that was, one must know the tropics and the disgusts
of having coolies for fellow-travellers. From the Argentine, from Canada
and the United States, from New Zealand and Australia, the English
streamed home to serve. From such a place as the Argentine there was
almost a stampede of British men of fighting age.
Starting with a big handicap of quality in their favour, the men of the
New Armies very soon found that it was all necessary if, within the
much briefer time allowed them to become fit for the fighting line, they
were to succeed in keeping level with the soldiers who would be their
comrades. The recruits of the old Regular Army before the war came into
an organisation which was officered, from brigade generals down to
junior subalterns, by specialists. Officers were drawn mostly from a
class with a tradition of rule, and were given a very close training.
Those who came in as officers from circles which had not that tradition
were in a minority, and during their course of training learned to
conform to the pattern set. Very much of the success of the British Army
has been due to the qualities of courage, coolness, and _noblesse
oblige_ of the officers. As a class they gave the best of leads--a far
better lead than did the generally domineering, sometimes brutal, German
officers. The recruits to the New Armies did not have the advantage of
coming to an organisation fully officered by men with this tradition of
command and technical knowledge of their work. They had to rely for
officers on material which was slightly poorer on the average.
The officers of the New Armies came from five sources:--
1. A few officers spared from units at the Front and devoting
themselves to the dull but glorious duty of helping on the new men.
These were usually first class.
2. "Dug-outs." A "dug-out" is not a form of entrenchment or shelter
but an officer who, having completed, as he thought, his soldier's
work, volunteered back to service in the New Army. Some of the
dug-outs were up to the standard of the Regular Army and, having
kept abreast of modern military progress, were able to "take post"
from the outset. Other dug-outs were more or less behind-hand with
modern military science. A few were frankly deplorable. But the
"dug-out" in the majority of cases made an excellent officer after
a little schooling (sometimes without). Lots of him were at G.H.Q.
Sometimes he proved valuable only for the preliminary work of
regimental organisation, and was then remorselessly passed over
when his unit was finally put into shape for the Front. He
bombarded the War Office with furious protests, then took up the
licking into shape of another raw unit.
3. Promoted non-commissioned officers from the Regular Force,
nearly always proficient in their technical work, and in the
majority of cases with also a sound instinct of leadership.
4. Recruited officers from the Universities and the public schools.
Almost invariably they had a sense of leadership. They had learned
a tradition of rule. In most cases they soon learned the technical
part of their work.
5. Recruited officers from the bulk of the community: in many cases
very good; sometimes just passing muster; in a few cases distinctly
poor. The necessity of a weeding-out was soon recognised.
Summing up in regard to the officers of the New Armies it has to be
admitted that they came below the standard of the Expeditionary Force,
but not much below the standard: and that they got to the standard of
the Territorials.
Put to the test of getting a post at G.H.Q., which was supposed to be
the crowning test of efficiency, the New Army Officers did not do badly.
I made a rough poll one night at the club dinner. More than half the
officers present were "New Army" men. In what may be called "specialist"
branches New Army men predominated.
The very wide sweep of the net which gathered in recruits gave the New
Armies a very varied stock of knowledgeable men to draw upon. The ideal
army officer should be, besides a gentleman and a skilled tactician, a
good horse-master, a good house-keeper, and a clever mechanician, able
to train men, to repair a telephone, a saddle, a cooking-pot or a wagon.
No one man can have all that knowledge in perfection, but with the New
Armies it was possible to get within a unit men trained in civil life
to every form of skill wanted. A regiment, with average luck, would have
recruits from the most varied industries and trades, and the picked
specialists in time got to "staff jobs" as a rule.
* * * * *
The "Regular" in 1914 and early 1915 was, I suppose, pretty generally
convinced that there was not much hope in the "Temporary." Especially
was this conviction firm in the mind of the very junior Regular. The
"Shop" boy, the young second lieutenant just from Woolwich, had a
blighting scorn for the "Temporary," whom he called a "Kitchener" and
often affected to regard as not an officer at all but some sort of
stranger whom you had to admit to Mess and tolerate in uniform because
authority said so, but who obviously was not a "pukka" military man, for
he could not talk about his "year" or exchange stories about wonderful
"rags." The average senior Regular probably thought very much the same
sort of thing, but, having cut his wisdom teeth, did not allow it to
show so palpably.
There was a certain amount of justification for this feeling, for the
advent of the huge number of "New" officers made a vast change in the
social conditions of the Army. It soon became obviously necessary that
the Temporary "Pip-Squeak" should come under a severely motherly
eye--that of the War Office and of various private philanthropic
agencies who would have us all dull and good (and if we cannot be both
we can be the one at least). That eye then also glared upon the
Temporary lieutenant and other Temporary officers of more exalted grade,
and also, to their intense disgust, on permanent officers, who professed
to understand why the "Temporary" should be the victim of sumptuary
regulation, but not the "pukka commission" man. All these officers
agreed that it was the wickedness of the Temporary Second Lieutenant
(otherwise Mr. Pip-Squeak) that had caused all the trouble, and could
not understand why authority did not recognise this view and make their
new rules apply only to the most junior officers. But the rain of rules
fell on the just and the unjust alike, and some of the just were wroth.
I could sympathise a good deal, even if I laughed a good deal more, at
the officer who found himself "treated like a child," as he put it. The
dignity of the position of a British officer in the old Regular Army
_qua_ officer was remarkable. His officer's rank gave him the confidence
of his banker, of his tradesmen, of society generally. To see a British
officer in uniform with doubtful company or under doubtful circumstances
was almost unknown. The tradition of the officer clan was jealously
guarded by the system of training. When at last, having got his
commission, Mr. Regular Pip-Squeak reported to his regiment in the old
days he found himself still very much in leading strings. Until he had
won six months' standing his safest attitude, even in Mess, was that of
"don't speak unless you are spoken to." Justice he could expect from his
brother officers, and sympathy too, but the sympathy was tempered by
severe snubbings to restrain any tendencies to effervescence. Above all
things, he was trained to respect his uniform; and as he had generally
the right to wear mufti when off duty, this high respect was more easy
than in war time, when uniform had to be almost constantly worn.
With the first recruiting of the New Armies, commissions were freely
issued to men with no training, and in some few cases with no manners.
For a little while a bewildered public did not appreciate the change,
and bankers, tradesmen, hosts, had some unhappy experiences. But what
may be called the "commercial" aspect of the question was soon put
right. Officers' rank ceased to give credit rights. Socially, the
readjustment was far less easy. The War Office was at last compelled to
assist that process of readjustment with various restrictive orders.
"We have been asking for it," commented one officer grimly when some
particularly repressive regulations were published. And without a doubt
we had been asking for it--that is to say the conduct of some officers
had made not merely advisable but necessary a degree of motherly (or
grandmotherly) supervision. Exhortation preceded regulation by many
months.
Afterwards commissions were only granted after some service or a Cadet
term of training. But the stringent regulations, which offended the
dignity of some "Regulars," remained. It was not that a milk-sop
standard was aimed at. It was not the case that leave was only given to
go out to Mothers' Meetings, Sewing Circles, and High Teas in
Presbyteries. It was recognised that boys will be boys. But there is a
time when parents must be parents; and the War Office was in this case
_in loco parentis_.
* * * * *
But all that in 1918 was an old tale and mostly a forgotten tale. At
G.H.Q. there was no scorn at all left for the Temporary who had done his
share of fighting, even when he joined the scarlet-tabbed ranks of the
elect. He was accepted as a brother officer with the fullest cordiality.
"Very much more interesting show, the Army is now," confessed one
Regular Colonel to me. "Talk in Mess now _is_ talk. You've no idea how
solemn and stuffy a Regular Mess could be, say in India or in a garrison
town."
There remained a little good-humoured chaff still for the Temporary who
had jumped to a high appointment without any real soldier life at all.
Brigadier-General ----, the eminent expert in ----, who became a General
very suddenly, was reported to go around partly in dreadful, partly in
proud anticipation of a guard turning out for him when he wandered from
G.H.Q. area.
The chaff was good-humoured. It was never put under the nose of its
object. So it did not do much harm. In truth I was struck by the general
good temper with which the Trade Union of Officers ultimately took its
"dilutees."
But without a doubt the Officers' Trade Union, or rather the Amalgamated
Society of Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers, and Men of the Regular
Army, was rather inclined to give the cold shoulder to the "dilutees" in
Lord Kitchener's time. These New Army people had not put in their proper
term of apprenticeship, had not paid their Union fees. Should they be
treated as full members of the Society? But that feeling died away as
the blood-bond of a stubborn campaign broadened and stiffened. It could
not even be kept alive by the somewhat silly advertisement in some
quarters of Territorial units and New Army units and Colonial units at
the expense of their Regular brethren.
[Illustration: THE BOULOGNE GATE From the town]
CHAPTER XIII.
G.H.Q. AND THE DOMINION ARMIES.
Our Parliament at the Club--A discussion of the Dominions, particularly
of Australia--Is the Englishman shy or stand-offish?--How the "Anzacs"
came to be--The Empire after the War.
It was quite a little Parliament in its way, the Officers' Club at
Montreuil, and one of its pet subjects of discussion was the Dominion
soldier and the effect that the campaign would have on British Imperial
relations. The talk covered a wide field and was sprinkled with
anecdotes; it came up many evenings out of all sorts of incidents.
"The Dominion men, many of them, are too touchy," says an officer who
has come back from a _liaison_ visit. "A Canadian officer--the talk
arising out of I do not know what incident--complained to me to-day:
'The Canadians do not seem to take on with the English.' 'Well, the
Canadians have a very taking way with them at the Front,' I replied,
hoping the allusion to Vimy Ridge would soothe him. But it didn't. I
hear from the Australians, too, the same complaint--that the English
people 'do not like them.'"
"What greedy young men they are," comments another. "What more do they
want than the abject Anzac-worship and Canadian-worship among the
British people? If anything ever went to the heart of the old Mother
Country and dimmed her spectacles for her, it was the way in which the
colonial troops came into the fighting line."
A Dominion officer at the table hazards that the British do seem
"stand-offish" until you know them.
A British officer explains that the English are a shy people and a
people with a high ideal of personal liberty and individualism; that the
Englishman loves a corner seat in a train not so much because it is more
comfortable but because it leaves his shyness, and his desire to keep
himself to himself, safe on one side; that he does not like to be
bothered, that he is very shy from the fear of bothering other people.
"Those cold English passing you awkwardly by, my huffy Australians or
Canadians, are very proud of you, and they do not go up to shake you by
the hand and say so because they fear you would take it as a liberty."
A staff officer who did _liaison_ work between Australians and the
British during the first battle of the Somme thinks that one of the
results of the Somme was the moulding during its course of a truly
Imperial Army. Forces of differing types went into the cauldron. One
type came out. All did a full share in the offensive, and by what they
taught and by what they learned had their influence in moulding this
"Imperial" Force. He blamed some newspapers for having devoted well
meant but mischievous energy to spoiling the work of this amalgamation.
A good deal of newspaper effort, if it had been taken seriously, he
says, would have fostered among the various troops a spirit of
third-class theatrical jealousy, as if they were a mob of people
competing for public favour and public notice: "Since the issue has been
raised in other quarters, let it be said that between Dominion troops
and British troops there was a fine emulation in skill and courage, and
that no sound judge could give the palm to any one section over another.
There were differences in method of courage and skill, no differences in
degree."
We all agreed on that; and that the spirit of comradeship between all
was firm. Someone noted as a curious thing that there seemed to be an
understanding that what is known among soldiers as "chipping" should be
dropped in inter-imperial relations. A Durham might explain--with no
real but all apparent seriousness--how lucky it was for the Yorks to
have the Durhams to lean upon; and the Yorks would respond in kind. In
the next trenches a New-South-Waler might, with a vigour that concealed
well the want of earnestness in his _blague_, explain the hopelessness
of the Victorians. But between British, Canadian and Australian this
"chipping" was dropped. They were good comrades, but felt that their
mutual intimacy had not yet grown to a stage which allowed of "ragging"
or "chipping."
* * * * *
Officers' Club G.H.Q. was inexhaustibly interested in the "Anzacs." They
were frequently under discussion. There was far more talk of them than
of their fellow colonials, the Canadians. They seemed to have more
dramatic interest. Their rakish hats challenged notice, and their rakish
actions.
Almost every day there was some fresh yarn of the Anzacs, a yarn of some
fine feat told admiringly, a yarn of some classic bit of impudence told
tolerantly. One tells a tale of the Anzacs' curious ideas of discipline.
Another caps this with the reminder that the Australian corps has the
best Salvage Record in the Army--that is to say is the most industrious
in rag-picking, shell-case gathering, waste-paper collecting, and so on.
"I don't wonder," the first speaker retorts. "They're always after
records. They'd go over and raid the Boche trenches for Salvage sooner
than play second fiddle."
"They did marvels saving the French harvest this year under shell-fire."
"Yes, they are all right if you keep them busy. But they are the very
devil in rest camp. Now in Cairo----"
But the table refuses to hear the story of Cairo again, because it is
not a very pleasant story.
The conclusion I came to is that the British officer had really a very
soft spot in his heart for the "wild Colonial boys"--Canadians and
Australians. I was always being appealed to, as knowing Australia, to
"explain" the Anzac, which I did at great length on various occasions,
and here is the substance of it all:
The Anzac striding--or limping--along with rakish hat and challenging
glance, for the first time brought Australasia actually home to the
Mother Country. These Australasians, the men of the Bush, were as
remarkable, as significant almost, as the Dacians in the army of another
Imperial nation two thousand years ago. Easily can they be picked out.
They walk the streets with a slightly obvious swagger. When they are
awed a little, it is a point of honour not to show it. When they are
critical a little, it peeps out. Two by two, they keep one another in
countenance and are fairly comfortable. Catch one alone and you may see
in his eyes a hunger for a mate, a need for some other Anzac. For all
his _bravura_ air, the Anzac has no great self-confidence; and he has a
child's shy fear of making himself ridiculous by a false step. The same
fear makes him difficult to know. He will often set up, as a protective
barrier against a real knowledge of him, a stubborn taciturnity, or a
garrulous flow of what Australasians call "skite" and Londoners call
"swank."
In pre-war days an Australian in England might have felt himself a
little of the barbarian in so smooth a comity, where people loved
moderately and hated very moderately; walked always by paths; were
somewhat ashamed of their own merits and suavely tolerant of others'
demerits; and were nervous of allowing patriotism to become infected
with the sin of pride. But England at war understood them better--the
Anzacs, the young of the British. The young of the British, not of the
English only, though that is the master element of the breed. The Anzac
is a close mixture of English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh colonists, with
practically no foreign taint.
There is, however, a wild strain in the mixture. One of the first great
tasks of Australasia was to take the merino sheep of Spain and make a
new sheep of it--a task brilliantly carried out. A concurrent task was
to take black sheep from the British Isles and make good white stock out
of them. The success in this was just as complete. The "rebels" of the
Mother Country--Scottish crofters, Irish agrarians, English Chartists
and poachers--mostly needed only full elbow room to become useful men.
Even for the Micawbers a land of lots of room was regenerative.
Was it Charles Lamb's quip that the early population of the British
Colonies should be good "because it was sent out by the best judges?"
That was a truth spoken in jest. The first wild strain was of notable
value to a new nation in the making. It came to Australasia not only
from the original settlers but also from the rushes to the goldfields.
And--note here the first sign that the Anzac people were to be dominated
by the British spirit and were to keep the law even while they forgot
conventions--there was never a Judge Lynch in an Australasian mining
camp. The King's writ and Trial by Jury stood always.
The Anzac started thus with good blood. To carry a study of the type to
the next stage, to note how the breed was influenced by environment, it
is necessary at the outset to put away the idea that the Australasian
people are engaged, to the exclusion of all other interests, in the task
of subduing the wildnesses of their continent. They have done, continue
to do, their pioneer work well, but have always kept some time for the
arts and humanities. To ignore that fact is, I think, a common mistake,
even in the days when every European opera-house of note had heard an
Australasian singer or musician, every European salon had shown
Australian pictures, and there was even a tiny representation of
Australian Art in pre-war Montreuil.
"Does anybody in Australia then have time to read Greek?" a
schoolmaster's wife in England asked once with surprise.
She was answered with another question: "Who is the great Greek scholar
of the day?"
"Professor Gilbert Murray."
"Well, he is an Australian."
It was a specious argument, for one swallow does not make a summer. But
the truth--that Australasia produces at a high rate mental as well as
physical energy--could have been proved categorically.
The Australian is not only a pioneer wrestling with the wilderness. He
is a creature of restless mental energy, keenly (perhaps with something
of a spirit of vanity) eager to keep in the current of world-thought,
following closely not only his own politics but also British and
international politics; a good patron of the arts; a fertile producer
and exporter of poetasters, minor philosophers, scientists, writers, and
artists. There is nothing that the Anzac, nationally, resents more than
to be regarded as a mere grower of wool and wheat, a hewer of wood and
digger of minerals. He aspires to share in all the things of life, to
have ranches and cathedrals, books and sheep. Above all, perhaps, he has
a passion for _la haute politique_.
All this was in the blood. The "wild strain" was not only of men who
found in the old country a physical environment too narrow. It was
partly of men who desired a wider mental horizon. Some very strange
minor elements would show out in a detailed analysis of early
Australasian immigration--disciples of Fourier who gave up great
possessions in England to seek an idealistic Communism in the Antipodes:
recluse bookworms who thought they could coil closer to their volumes in
primitive solitudes. But one element was strong--the political and
economic doctrinaire; and the conditions of the new country encouraged
the growth of this element particularly, so that Australia soon won
quite a fame for political inventions (_e.g._, the "Australian Ballot"
and the "Torrens Land Title"). But the general growth of what may be
termed a "thinking" class was encouraged by the very isolation which, it
would seem at first thought, should have an opposite effect. Whilst
other young countries lost to older and greater centres of population
their young ambitious men, Australasia's antipodean position preserved
her from the full extent of the drain of that mental law of gravity
which makes the big populations attract the men who aspire to work with
their brains more than with their hands. Australasia will always be
claiming attention not only as a producer of wheat, wool and well-knit
men, but also of ideas.
The ideas of this young nation of the British, nurtured in the
Australasian environment, would strike the pre-war England of five years
ago as naively reactionary. The Anzac, faced by natural elements which
are inexorably stern to folly, to weakness, to indecision, but which are
generously responsive to capable and dominating energy, had become more
resourceful, more resolute, more cruel, more impatient than his British
cousin. The men who followed the drum of Drake were much akin to the
Australasian of to-day.
Australian Imperialism, in truth, must have had for some years past a
fussy air to the cooler and calmer minds of England; though the good
sense and good humour of the Mother Country rarely allowed this to be
seen. When New South Wales insisted on lending a hand in the little
Soudan War she was not snubbed. Nor was Victoria, pressing at the same
time a still more unnecessary naval contingent. In the South African War
Australian eagerness to take a part was more than generously recognised,
and when Australia next insisted on giving help also in the suppression
of the Boxer Rising, room was patiently found for her naval contingent.
About this here is an illustrative story, which is welcomed as "quite
Australian." When the Australian Gunboat "Protector" arrived in Chinese
waters the British admiral went on board to pay his compliments and was
not stinting in praise of Australian military and naval prowess.
Thereupon the Australian band is said to have struck up with a tune from
"The Belle of New York:" "Of course _you_ can never be quite like us."
It is perhaps a true story; certainly possible. There is a touch of gay
impudence in the Australian character which an ex-Governor confessed he
loved "because it was so young."
Always one comes back to that word "young." It is the key to an
understanding of the Anzac--youth with its enthusiasms, rashnesses,
faults, shynesses; youth, raw, if you will, but of good breed and high
intentions.
Australasian life leads to a certain hardness of outlook. Life is
prized, of course, but its loss--either of one's own or of the other
fellow's--is not regarded with any superstitious horror. Certainly it is
not regarded as the greatest evil. To go out with a mate and to come
back without him and under the slightest suspicion of not having taken
the full share of risk and hardship would be counted greater. Living
close up to Nature (who can be very savage with tortures of fire and
thirst and flood), the back-country Anzac--who sets the national
type--must learn to be wary and enduring and sternly true to the duties
of mateship. The Bedouin of tradition suggests the Anzac in his ideals
of mateship and of stoicism. The Anzac follows the same desert school of
chivalry in his love for his horse and dog and his hospitality to the
stranger within his gates. He will share his last water with the animal
he is fond of; and in the back-country the lonely huts of the boundary
riders are left open to any chance caller, with a notice, perhaps, as to
where to find the food stores, and to "put the treacle back where the
ants cannot get to it." It is, of course, a point of honour not to take
except in case of need.
* * * * *
An English padre who put in two years in the "Back of Beyond" of
Australia as a "Bush Brother" confesses that his first impression was
that the Anzac of the Bush was cruel and pagan. His last impression was
that the Anzac was generally as fine a Christian as any heaven for human
beings would want. An incident of this parson's "conversion" (he
related) was the entry into a far-back town of a band of five men
carrying another on a stretcher. The six were opal miners with a little
claim far out in the desert. One had been very badly mauled in an
explosion. The others stopped their profitable work at once and set
themselves to carry him in to the nearest township with a hospital The
distance was forty-five miles. On the road some of the party almost
perished of thirst, but the wounded man had his drink always, and always
the bandages on his crushed leg were kept moist in the fierce heat of
the sun. One of the men was asked how they had managed to make this
sacrifice.
"It was better to use the water that way than to hear the poor blighter
moan."
* * * * *
Many a night we speculated to what degree the different Dominion types
will approximate as a result of this war. Certainly when the Dominion
and British troops were in contact tidal currents of knowledge flowed to
and fro which left both the gainers. Points which had been particular
property became common: regarding economy in the use of the
water-bottle, the art of making a bed in a shell-hole, informal methods
of acquiring horses, the best tracks towards the soft side of Ordnance,
the true dignity of salutes, sniping as a sport, the unpatriotism of
recklessness, and other matters. Slang was pooled and trench language
much enriched. In all things the essential kinship of the British race
was disclosed.
We agree that after the war, the British Empire will have more of a
general likeness. Colonial ideas will have penetrated more strongly into
the Mother Country. British ideas will have permeated the Colonial
restlessness and impatience. What an ideal race the British could be
with a constant coming and going from the Mother's home to the
children's houses; an exchange of good grey wisdom with eager
enthusiasm, the equable spirit of green and cloudy England mingling with
the ardency of the Dominions.
Finally a Dominion officer sums up:--
"I do not think an Empire managed on the old British lines could survive
another great shock. It is charming to be so equable and good-tempered
and to love your enemy as yourself and to do good to those who hate you.
But it brings a nation too close to the fate which overcame the
Peruvians under the Incas (they were a charmingly equable and
good-tempered and confiding race). Yet those who hope for an Empire
managed on Canadian lines, or on Australian lines, leave me cold. I want
good wheat crops and cathedrals, the best of the new and of the old
spirit. And just as the sole real advantages of being rich are that one
can be honest and generous, there would be no use at all in being a
great Empire and yet not feeling strong enough to 'play the game' fairly
and chivalrously. I hate hearing the talk--which is the swing back from
the excess of British tolerance--of a cold-blooded and merciless
efficiency as the ideal of national life. Better to perish than to be a
German Empire trampling on the faces of women and babes to the throne of
power."
CHAPTER XIV.
EDUCATING THE ARMY.
The beginning of an interesting movement--The work of a few
enthusiasts--The unexpected peace--Humours of lectures to the
Army--Books for the Army--The Army Printery.
In the last phase of the war G.H.Q. saw a remarkable new development in
Army organisation: the inclusion of civic education as part of the
soldier's Army course. Before this war, of course, there had been Army
schoolmasters, and these in peace time did valuable work in teaching
illiterate soldiers. Cobbett, we know, owed his education to the Army;
so did one of the famous Generals of this war, Sir William Robertson;
and once we had as a visitor and lecturer at G.H.Q. an American
University Professor whose first education had been won as a ranker in
the British Army.
But the new Education Scheme had a much wider scope than the old Army
schools. The plan in brief was to make civic education a definite and
compulsory part of Army life, so that every man joining the Army should
have a course of humane and technical or professional education. The
plan is now in course of being carried on to successful fruition, and in
the future the Army will be a Continuation School as well as a defence
service.
This may prove to be one of the most useful results of the war. It was
due to the enthusiasm of a little band of soldiers and civilians, the
leaders of which were Colonel Borden Turner, Major-General
Bonham-Carter, Colonel Lord Gorell and Sir Henry Hadow.
The Army Educational movement had a small beginning with the
organisation of lectures. After the fighting of 1917 it was felt that
something more than the usual round of cinema shows and the performances
of Divisional theatrical troupes was necessary to help to recreate the
fighting value of the Army, and that what was required was something
more solid and intellectual, something that would raise an interest in
civic subjects quite apart from the war. It was therefore decided to get
as many scholars as possible to come out and give lectures to the men.
During the previous winter the Y.M.C.A. had arranged for a few lecturers
to come out and lecture in back areas, and they had machinery already
existing for looking after them in France. The Y.M.C.A. now again
undertook the work of housing, feeding, and transporting the lecturers
in France, and for all arrangements for getting them to the country.
Major-General Bonham-Carter persuaded some of the Government offices,
viz., Reconstruction, Food Control, Pensions, Labour, Education, to send
out men who could help the movement; and Lieutenant-Colonel (then
Captain) Borden Turner came to G.H.Q. to supervise the details. All
arrangements for lectures were made by the General Staff with the
Y.M.C.A. Lecturers were sent to units in the fighting areas rather than
to the Lines of Communication.
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL C. BONHAM CARTER]
Later on it was decided that we must have an organisation to carry out a
big scheme of general education directly an armistice was declared, so
that the time of the men might be profitably employed while waiting for
demobilisation after the fighting was over. This decision was made in
December, 1917. Major-General Bonham-Carter and Captain Borden Turner
worked out a scheme with this idea, and Sir Henry Hadow, an
educationalist of great renown, gave his assistance.
Already efforts in this direction had been made in England and in the
Canadian Corps and elsewhere by individuals, to provide facilities for
education and hold classes, and a few voluntary classes were being held
by the Y.M.C.A. There was, however, no organised effort anywhere except
in the Canadian Corps.
In January, 1918, it was decided to get the scheme started as early as
possible and not wait for the Armistice. But at that time there was a
great shortage of men, and naturally any scheme which demanded new
establishments met with objections. For this reason things moved slowly.
However, a scheme was got ready, waiting for the favourable moment to
arrive. It arrived sooner than was expected. At an historic dinner one
night at Lord Haig's château his personal enthusiasm was aroused, and he
gave orders for the preparation of a scheme for general education
throughout the Army in France with the object (1) of making men better
citizens of the Empire, by widening their outlook and knowledge, (2) of
helping them by preparing them for their return to civil life.
Lord Haig approved of the scheme that had already been prepared, but it
was put into force slowly, because very few men could be spared from
fighting and Lines of Communication work to fill the establishments
required. But a start was made. The scheme arranged for the work to be
administered by General Staff officers and attached officers in all
Formations, but on the Lines of Communication the Y.M.C.A. carried out
all teaching work as agents of the General Staff.
In April, 1918, it was realised that the efforts in France would be
greatly hampered if they were not co-ordinated with those in England and
elsewhere. The War Office was therefore urged to undertake this
co-ordinating work. Lord Gorell, who was at that time working under
Major-General Bonham-Carter in the Training Branch at G.H.Q., was
appointed to the War Office for the purpose.
The Army Education movement had warm sympathy from those at the head of
affairs. The Commander-in-Chief when once it was put before him was
enthusiastic. So was Lord Milner, then Secretary of State for War; and
Sir Travers Clarke, Q.M.G. and Major-General Daunay (Staff Duties) gave
it every support. But it was a movement from below rather than from
above, a movement springing from a widely-spread feeling amongst the
soldiers that they should win some better outlook on life from their
term in the Army.
If one man more than another should be singled out in this movement,
which really sprang from spontaneous generation, it would be Borden
Turner. He had the crusading spirit and preached Education to every
authority until what was a vague aspiration came to be a concrete fact.
Certainly Borden Turner was a scarcely tolerable friend to many of the
already over-busy officers at G.H.Q. He was always urging them to give
lectures, to take on classes. At this time there was practically no
"Establishment," and the only hope was to get officers to give spare
time to educational work. They had no spare time, but at the
remorseless urging of Borden Turner they stole hours from sleep or from
the Ramparts and gave lectures or took classes.
Before the Armistice the Organisation of the Education Branch had
progressed to some extent. Lord Gorell had gone to London and found a
sympathetic leader in Major-General Lyndon Bell, the Director of Staff
Duties, War Office, and S.D. 8 was established, having as its chief
officers under Lord Gorell, Sir Henry Hadow, Colonel Sir Theo. Morrison,
Major Basil Williams (the writer of a famous Life of Chatham), and Major
Frank Fox. General Bonham-Carter and Lieutenant-Colonel Borden Turner
remained in France, and the work of the new branch was being established
and co-ordinated with that of the Y.M.C.A. and with the Canadian,
Australian, and New Zealand Army Education schemes when the German
unexpectedly threw in his hand. A feverish rush for demobilisation at
once set in. As a consequence of newspaper agitation the original
demobilisation plans were seriously upset, and one of the worst
sufferers was the Army Education movement. Still an amount of useful
work both on the humane and the technical side was effected. Best of
all, the principle was firmly established that if a nation takes away a
young citizen from civil life it owes it to him that when the time comes
to send him back to civil life it will not be into a blind alley; his
term in the army will be employed to make a sound citizen of him and to
give him training in some vocation.
[Illustration: LIEUT-COLONEL D. BORDEN TURNER]
The Army Education organisation set itself to search out teaching talent
in the Army before calling in outside assistance, and it made some
interesting finds. Many a University don was discovered in a very humble
position. A gentleman described as "one of the most learned men in
Europe" was a bombardier in a battery. N.C.O.s and rankers who were
Fellows of famous colleges were common enough. Most of them were drawn
into the Education organisation.
One of the officers taken by Education from G.H.Q., where he was a staff
captain in the Adjutant General's Branch, was Captain Hansell, who had
been the Prince of Wales' tutor in his student days. Hansell, in
addition to his scholarship, is a sagacious urbane diplomat with a deep
and sympathetic knowledge of French life. He would have been best placed
on the Military Mission to the French Army. But that would have been a
serious loss if it had taken him away from G.H.Q., where his
after-dinner talk cheered the seniors and his artful unobtrusive
tutelage helped the juniors. Captain Hansell took charge of the
Lecturers' Headquarters for Education, and the task must have made a
very heavy demand on his tact. Lecturers of all kinds were being sent
out to France to address the troops, some of them with very vague
notions of what was required of them in the way of kit. One lecturer
vastly pleased his soldier audiences, but imposed a heavy strain on
transport by always appearing on the platform in full evening dress.
Another lecturer went out--in a Flanders winter--with a frock-coat as
his warmest garment, "and it was the thinnest frock-coat in
Christendom," observed a sympathiser. Of course a very great deal of
"roughing it" was the lot of the lecturer going from unit to unit to
troops living under active service conditions.
Moreover organisation was not perfect at the time. At one period a
steady stream of lecturers was arriving at Lecturers' Headquarters but
none was going out to lecture, because all transport for the time was
absorbed in a particularly heavy phase of demobilisation. The lecturers,
on whose damask periods idleness was as a cankering worm in the bud, got
into a sad state of impatience and were threatening to lecture one
another, or do something else desperate, when the position was saved by
a timely visit to them of the Prince of Wales and his brother, Prince
Albert, who had tea with them, chatted over their work, and convinced
them that they were not out on a fool's errand. Shortly afterwards the
transport situation was relieved, and the lecturers rushed to their
audiences and peace reigned again. But it is dreadful to think of what
might have happened if there had not been the urbane and diplomatic
Captain Hansell smoothing over troubles. A mutiny of lecturers would
have afforded some puzzling problems to the Provost-Marshal.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN H. P. HANSELL]
Before the Army Education organisation was born a great number of men in
the Army did some good solid reading. The Camps Libraries organisation
in England sent out to every unit parcels of books. Most of these were
of the opiate class, light magazines and light stories intended to
bemuse and not to educate the mind. But a proportion of good books
slipped in and were warmly appreciated by some.
* * * * *
The Army itself had a very fecund printing press, but it was devoted
almost solely to the production of books of orders and regulations and
text books. Regimental annuals of a humorous kind existed but were not
encouraged. As a rule they were printed in England, not in France, and
the conditions of censorship--more perhaps than the taste of writers and
readers--confined them as a rule to somewhat feeble japes.
There were very often mooted proposals for a G.H.Q. Monthly. It might
have drawn on a very distinguished band of writers. But authority
contrived that these proposals should never come to maturity. The
expenditure of time and material was grudged, and G.H.Q. was naturally
very nervous on points of "Intelligence." There are a thousand and one
ways in which military secrets can be given away with quite harmless
intent. An Intelligence General's aphorism on this point ran: "We find
out far more from the stupidity of our enemies than from the cleverness
of our spies."
It is clear that silence is the one sound policy. If a man says nothing,
nothing can be discovered from him. If he will speak, even if it is only
with the intention of deceiving, he may disclose something. British
diplomacy abroad (which was not such a foolish show as some critics say,
or else how comes it that the British Empire, from the tiny foundation
of these islands, has come to its present greatness?) was always the
despair of the inquisitive Foreign Correspondent, for it never said
anything. An Embassy or Ministry which would tell a lie, especially an
elaborate lie, was far preferable, for from something you may deduce
something; from nothing, nothing. G.H.Q. acted with a sound discretion
in smothering all proposals for a G.H.Q. Monthly.
The Army did most of its own printing, of maps, orders, forms, and
training books. Maps were done by the R.E. mapping section, other
printing by the Army Printing and Stationery Services under Colonel
Partridge. This was a highly efficient department with printing presses
of the most modern type at Boulogne, Abbéville, and elsewhere. A.P. and
S.S. printed daily General Routine Orders and, as occasion demanded,
poured out in millions Army Forms, posters, pamphlets, and books. Both
the French and Americans used its services. It could print in Chinese
and Arabic as well as in European characters, and some of its
achievements in the way of quick and good printing would do credit to a
big London printing house.
The Boulogne Printing Press, which was under the care of Major Bourne,
was a particularly up-to-date establishment much praised by the
Americans and the French as well as by our own Army. It put a strain
once, however, on the politeness of the French. The French Mission at
G.H.Q. wanted a book printed giving a record of its organisation. A.P.
and S.S., in the right spirit, did its best to make the book a handsome
one, and designed a special cover with _fleur-de-lys_ decorations. The
French Mission, with tact but with firmness, pointed out that France was
now a Republic and a monarchical symbol could hardly be permitted on an
official publication. It might give rise to a suspicion that the Army
contemplated a _coup d'état_. The printers regretted and tried again.
The second cover design bore the good old Roman Republican device of
the lictors' fasces. But they were shown reversed. The French were
desolated at being so exiguous, but could something else be tried, just
plain type? The printers were determined, however, to give the good
French something to show what an artistic people we English really are,
and made a third effort at a decorated cover. This showed a really
charming design in which the Gallic Cock strutted triumphantly along a
rose-point border. The French were enchanted, so enchanted that they
found reason to have another book, an annexe to the original book,
printed with the same cover.
American Army publications were normally somewhat more solemn and staid
than our own. Occasionally, however, the American humour broke out, as
in the gas warning leaflet, which had not, perhaps, the sanction of
American G.H.Q. but was widely (and usefully) circulated in the
trenches. It began:--
In a Gas Attack
There are only Two Crowds
The Quick and the Dead
Be Quick and get that Gas Mask on!
After the Armistice, the Printing Services, no longer so much pressed
with other Army work, were able to undertake some purely educational
printing. But by this time demobilisation was sweeping away the classes,
and the best of the opportunity had passed.
CHAPTER XV.
THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT.
The disappointments of 1916 and 1917--The collapse of Russia--The
Cambrai Battle--The German propaganda--Fears of irresolution at
Home--Reassurances from Home--Effects of the Submarine war--An
economical reorganisation at G.H.Q.--A new Quartermaster General--Good
effects of cheerfulness at Home.
The Somme campaign, 1916, had been begun with very high hopes. The main
conception of it was a sound one, to attack the German line at the point
of junction between the French and British forces, the point where,
according to all the accepted principles, the Allied line should have
been weakest but actually was not. That was the only way to bring an
element of the unexpected into a grand attack in those days of long and
laborious artillery preparations. (The Tank did not appear on the scene
until the Battle of the Somme was two months old and did not develop its
usefulness as a substitute for artillery preparation until nearly a year
later).
For the Somme battle an enormous artillery concentration was made, and
a special "Army of Pursuit" was trained in the rear of our lines to
follow through when the German line had been breached. Then there was a
preliminary bombardment of the German positions from the sea to beyond
the Somme, and, amidst many feint attacks, the British and the French
offensive north and south of the Somme was launched.
The First Battle of the Somme made the walls of Jericho quake but just
failed to bring them down. The Army of Pursuit was given no chance of
pushing to the Rhine; its energies had to be diverted towards sustaining
the attack. The fighting season closed in 1916 with the Germans still
holding their main defences but convinced, so far as the reasonable
section of their leaders were concerned, that the game was up and that
the best thing to do was to work for a peace on the best terms possible.
[Illustration: ON THE RAMPARTS]
Thus 1916 was a somewhat disappointing year; 1917 was even more so. The
fighting season, that year, closed with the Allied cause in a worse
position than in 1916 and with Germany correspondingly encouraged. There
would have been some reasonable excuse if in the winter of 1917-18 tails
drooped at G.H.Q. The weather was particularly vile. Every day the winds
that howled over the bleak hill-top seemed to have come straight from
Russia and Germany, bringing with them a moral as well as a physical
cold. The casualty lists of the Autumn were not cheerful to ponder over;
and it was singularly depressing to hear from Home that in some
political circles those casualty lists were being conned over with the
idea of founding on them a case against the Army.
Nobody was inclined to try to represent the late Autumn campaign as
altogether satisfactory. But it was felt by the soldiers that "they had
done their durn'dest, angels can do no more;" and that there was not
sufficient appreciation of the fact at Home that with Russia down and
out, France in a very bad way, Italy tottering, the British Army had had
to step into the breach, had had to take a gruelling without being able
to accomplish much more than defence.
It had seemed in 1916 that the time had arrived for Germany to pay the
penalty. But a triumph not of a military kind came to her rescue. The
German methods of espionage and civil corruption were on the whole as
blundering and as disastrous as her other methods during the Great War.
They helped to alienate practically all the civilised neutral world. But
in Russia--mystic, generous, trusting Russia--they had an unhappy
success. In the Autumn of 1916 this first showed. Roumania at that time
joined in the war against Germany, and this new accession of strength
apparently marked the near end of the war. But Russia mysteriously
collapsed owing to the effects of German corruption. Roumania was left
"in the air," and a large part of her territory was over-run. From this
date, though many of the gallant soldiers of Russia made heroic efforts
to safeguard their country's honour, that great Ally was practically out
of the fight. By the winter of 1917-18 she was quite out. The French had
had grave troubles. The Italians had had to send out an S.O.S. signal.
We should have been more cheerful if the Cambrai attack, 1917, had had
the full success it deserved. That really was in its conception and
execution a very fine affair. At the time Germany was drawing troops and
guns from the Russian Front and pouring them on to our Front in
wholesale fashion. Both France and Great Britain had had to send Armies
to the help of Italy. Our Battle of Passchendaele was not exactly
flourishing. To undertake a new battle was the last development the
enemy expected of us; and to do what is absolutely unexpected is to do
the big thing in war. The British command collected an Army ostensibly
for Italy, made a great secret assemblage of Tanks, and suddenly
attacked the Germans in the strongest part of their Hindenburg line.
Their line was particularly strong at that point. It comprised three
series of defences each one covered by triple barriers of wire from 50
to 60 yards deep. A system of dug-outs (constructed with the labour of
Russian prisoners) at a depth of 50 feet below the surface made an
underground city with water and electric light installations, kitchens,
drying-rooms and the like. Above the surface the houses were closely
packed with the earth removed from the excavations, and thus became
great earthworks indestructible by any shell-fire.
All this the British Third Army, in a surprise attack carried out by the
Tanks and the Infantry, over-ran and captured in a day's attack. So
fierce was the British advance and so feeble the German defence _when
taken by surprise_ that we almost got into Cambrai. If that centre had
been won the German Front in the West would have been deprived of its
central pillar. The German defence, however, rallied in time to avoid
absolute disaster. When the German military mind was given time to think
it could always make a good show, and the _riposte_ to our Cambrai
attack was a good one. We lost most of the fruits of a dramatic _coup_.
It was more than annoying to think that just when we had successfully
solved the problem of a break-through we had not the means, owing to
commitments elsewhere, to push the thrust home.
* * * * *
Cambrai was a good deal "boomed" in the English Press at the time on
"popular" lines. But I do not think that the skill of generalship and
organisation that it showed were quite appreciated. The favourite
British pose of being a complete ass, altogether inferior to the "other
fellow," used to be pushed to the extreme point in regard to military
matters. The British had a quaint humility in respect to their military
skill. In a shame-faced kind of way they admitted that their soldiers
were brave; but for examples of military genius they always referred to
the "other fellow." Yet one may be daring enough, perhaps, to say
something on the other side; and to suggest that in the Great War the
German was really surpassed in most points of military skill by the
British. The difference was not always great, but where the difference
was greatest was just in those points of invention, of new tactics and
new strategy, which show the better brain. Heresy it will seem; but the
truth is that from 1914 to 1918 the British military system showed
itself superior to the German in resource and sagacity. Perhaps it would
be better to say the British-French military system, for it is difficult
to separate the achievement of one from the other.
Consider one by one the main features of the great campaign. The warfare
in the air was its most dramatic feature. Everything of air tactics and
strategy that the German used he copied from the British and French. It
was the British who originated aeroplane attack with incendiary bullets
on captive balloons, aeroplane escort of attacking infantry, aeroplane
sallies at low altitude on enemy trenches, and the various combinations
of observing machines with fighting machines. In the first battle of the
Somme, when the British and French first disclosed their sky tactics,
the German was absolutely driven out of the air. He had then to learn to
copy all our methods; and he originated none of his own.
Another dramatic feature, the complicated and terribly effective
artillery curtain fire, was evolved by the British-French command. It
was copied by the Germans, who themselves contributed nothing new to
artillery science during the war. Yet another leading feature was the
Tank, the Tank which made its real value first felt at Cambrai. This was
a purely British invention, evolved during this war for the needs of
this war.
* * * * *
Our "Winter of discontent" was not made any sweeter by the suspicion
that existed of a possible yielding on the part of the political powers
at Home to German propaganda. This German propaganda took the form of
blazoning the preparations for a sensational Spring offensive in 1918;
it was trumpeted like a Fat Woman at a Fair, and supplemented by an
almost equally strident advertisement of a gigantic defensive. In
addition to preparing a great on-rush in which Calais, Paris, Rome, and
perhaps London were to be captured, the German High Command wished the
world to know that it was also preparing a mighty series of defensive
positions back to the Rhine. Wonderful showmen! They had not only the
most marvellous Fat Woman, but also a miraculous Skeleton Man. And the
prize they wished to win, by bluff if not by fighting, was agreement to
an inconclusive peace.
The soldiers were not affected much by these tactics. They took solid
comfort from two facts. The first fact was expressed in the homely
proverb "Much cry, little wool." Had the Germans been confident that
they could smash through the steel wall which barred them on the West
from the sea, from the capitals of civilisation, and from the supplies
of raw material for which they were starving, there would have been no
preliminary advertisement. The effort would have been made, and
Germany's enemies would have had to abide by the result. There would not
have been any compunction at the consequent cost in blood. The mere
extravagance of the advertisement of the German plans was proof to the
soldiers at G.H.Q. that those plans were recognised not to have a solid
enough military foundation, and had to be reinforced by showy bluff.
The second fact which gave solid comfort was that in any comparison at
all of forces the German group was inferior to the West
European-American group. There was not any doubt at G.H.Q. Indeed the
more the Germans protested of what they were going to do in the Spring
of 1918 the more firm was G.H.Q. in believing that the enemy was at last
coming to the end of his resources and was anxious to "bluff" a peace
rather than "show" a weak hand.
But it was feared that the people at Home might take the other view, and
it had to be admitted that the German put up a very strong bluff.
Perhaps its cleverest form at the time was in the discussion of "peace
terms"--a discussion in which it was presumed that the German would
impose a victorious peace before the summer of 1918. A characteristic
discussion--G.H.Q. kept a close eye on the German press and minutely
examined every German paper published during the war--would begin with
some Prince pointing out the minimum indemnity that Germany should exact
from her foes, and explaining in what form it should be exacted.
Germany's need, it would be pointed out, would be for raw materials,
food, cotton, wool, rubber, tobacco, silk and the like. It was these
that must be supplied to Germany by way of indemnity. They would have to
be supplied not free, but at a price 20 per cent. lower than the current
market price, and the annual value of this discount would only reach
the modest sum of £50,000,000 a year.
To have had to provide yearly a tribute of any kind to Germany would of
course have taken away the independence of the Allies completely. They
would have been put in the position of admitting a German suzerainty,
and would have become as the oppressed Christian provinces of the old
Turkish Empire. But to provide this tribute of raw material, the
discount on which at 20 per cent. would be £50,000,000 a year, would
have been to engage to send to Germany yearly raw materials of her
choice to the value of £250,000,000. This would have been the first call
on the farms, the mines, the shipping of the Allies, and only after that
call was met would the Allies have been able to begin to supply their
own larders and their own factories.
That was one direction the German Peace Propaganda took. The idea of it
was, presumably, to strike terror into our hearts, to make us welcome
with something like relief the actual official terms of a peace
negotiation when they came to be promulgated.
Then someone in Germany would take the other side. Assuming with
absolute cock-sureness that Germany must win the war in the Spring of
1918, this publicist would affect to regret the savage terms of peace
imposed upon Russia. These terms, it was argued, did not represent the
considered wishes of the German people. But in war the wisdom of the
statesmen was pushed aside by the eagerness of the soldiers. The German
politicians were overwhelmed in regard to the Russian peace because the
Russian had allowed things to go too far. But if only the Western Powers
would agree to negotiate for peace _now_, the "reasonable German
politicians" would be able to assert their authority. There would be no
ruthless military conditions such as were imposed upon Russia. Sweetly
and moderately the Germans would frame their terms; but the Powers of
the Entente must "put the war into liquidation at once." Delay would
mean that the "reasonable German politicians" would lose their power to
restrain the military party.
G.H.Q. remembered the old fable about certain trustful animals being
invited to pay friendly visits to the cave of a beast of prey. One wise
animal noticed that whilst there were many tracks of visitors going into
the cave there were no tracks of visitors coming out. We had noticed
that a free Russia went into negotiation with Germany to conclude a
friendly and reasonable peace on terms of "no annexations and no
indemnities." No free Russia came out.
But G.H.Q. was honestly alarmed for a time that resolution would be
shaken at Home, and welcomed with joy (as the Germans did with rage),
the firm declarations of the Versailles Council of the Allies and the
unshaken confidence and resolution shown in the speech from the Throne
at the prorogation of the British Parliament.
As soon as the Home political situation was seen to be clear, G.H.Q. set
about preparing for the "wrath to come" with a good deal of cheerfulness
and with some amusement that the German propaganda should, as a final
kick, make a strong though forlorn effort to revive the old story that
Great Britain contemplated the seizure from France of Calais and the
department of Pas-de-Calais. "Even," said the German Wireless about this
time, "if it is not openly admitted that the English will never
voluntarily evacuate the French port of Calais, which they have
occupied--" etc., etc.
This lie revived in our Mess between British and French _liaison_
officers an old topic of humorous conversation. For when this particular
lie was burdening the German Wireless some time before, a British
General was showing to a French General the arrangements of the British
Base at Etaples. He exhibited with pride the great bath houses for the
men, built of concrete and "good for a hundred years." "Ah yes, very
solid--good for a hundred years," said the French General, laughing.
Then they both laughed.
* * * * *
Christmas, 1917, was celebrated with the usual British merriment at
G.H.Q., and on New Year's Day everybody's cheerful greeting was "That
this year may see the end of the war." But I think there were few
officers of standing who thought that a peace Christmas was possible in
1918. No one would contemplate the possibility of losing the war, of
stopping on any terms short of a German surrender; but few could see any
possibility of victory near ahead. There were thick clouds all round the
horizon. Russia was finished. Italy was not cheerful. France was
recovering but not yet showing sure signs of emergence from that fit of
depression out of which M. Clemenceau was to pull her--the soul of a
Richelieu in his frail body.
The worst symptom of all from the point of view of the British Army was
the threat of a shortness of supplies. Just when the collapse of Russia
had allowed the enemy to concentrate his full strength on the Western
Front, the great reservoir of British wealth, which was the main
financial resource of the Alliance, showed signs of not being
inexhaustible. There was a call at the same time for greater preparation
and greater economy. From the beginning of 1918 there were two great
cross-currents of correspondence between G.H.Q. and the Home Government,
one demanding new weapons, new defences, new equipment, the other
demanding rigid economy in steel, in timber, in shipping space, in
food, in oil, in expenditure generally. This was partly due to actual
lack of money and of credit. But in the main it was the result of the
submarine war.
It was at the end of 1915 that the German Admiralty prepared a
memorandum arguing that if unrestricted submarine war were adopted as a
policy (_i.e._, sinking everything, hostile or neutral, warship or
passenger ship), then Great Britain would be compelled to sue for peace
within six months. The memorandum gave various statistics regarding food
supplies, tonnage, etc., to prove this hypothesis. The memorandum was
forwarded to the Imperial Chancellor, and by him sent to Dr. Helfferich,
Secretary of State for Finance, for a report. Dr. Helfferich reported
adversely. He was not convinced that Great Britain would be brought to
her knees. He feared the effect upon neutral nations of such a policy.
The German Admiralty persisted in its view. Thereupon the matter was
submitted for report to ten experts representing finance, commerce,
mining, and agriculture. These experts were asked to advise (1) as to
the probable effect upon Great Britain (2) as to the probable effect
upon Germany's relations with neutrals and (3) as to how far the
situation in Germany demanded the employment of such a weapon.
All these experts agreed that the effect on Great Britain would be to
force her to sue for peace within six months or less. Indeed, Herr
Müller, President of the Dresden Bank, thought that Great Britain would
collapse within three months. All the experts also agreed as to the
third point of reference, arguing that Germany's position was so
difficult that the most desperate measures were necessary to end the
war. Herr Engelhardt, of Mannheim, Councillor of Commerce, thought the
economic position of Germany so bad that a few weeks' delay might render
even ruthless submarine war useless. On the second point, the effect on
relations with neutrals, the experts were divided. Some thought that the
United States would be driven to war, others thought not. In all cases
they did not see a reason against ruthless submarine war in their
possible relations with any neutral.
But the fateful decision was not taken until February, 1917, when the
destruction of peaceful shipping, whether of enemy or of neutral
countries, was ordered. It did not end the war in six months, nor in
twelve months; but by the beginning of 1918 there were some very serious
difficulties of supply just when the strictly military position demanded
the most generous effort.
I wonder if those experts who bandy to and fro explanations and
accusations in regard to the German break-through in the Spring of 1918
ever have looked at the matter from the point of view of supply, of the
supply, say, of one sternly necessary item of defence, wire? At a
careful computation we wanted 12,000 tons of barbed wire in January,
1918, and 10,000 more tons in February, 1918, to give our men a
reasonable chance of holding the line which we knew to be threatened. Of
that total of 22,000 tons we actually got 7,700 tons, _i.e._, 35 per
cent. of what was needed.
I do not quote this fact to start another quarrel, shuttle-cocking blame
from soldier to politician. I am more than ready to believe that the
people at Home were then doing their best (as, _pace_ all grousers, I
believe they did their best from August, 1914, to November, 1918). But
you cannot spin out wire like you spin out talk, especially barbed wire.
The British soldier can, with his mere flesh and blood, and that gay
courage of his, do wonders in the way of making up for want of material.
But he could not hold up the attacked sector in the Spring of 1918
against overwhelming odds; and one of the reasons was that he had not
enough wire in front of him. He had not the wire in front of him because
it had not been, _could not be_, supplied.
How anxious was the task of G.H.Q. at the dawn of 1918 may be
illustrated with these heads of correspondence, in and out.
To G.H.Q. from Home.
The greatest economy in steel is urged.
The position in regard to shipping is serious; the strictest
economy in everything is necessary.
Lubricants are hard to get. We urge the greatest economy.
From G.H.Q. to Home.
More machine-guns are urgently needed.
There is a shortage of blankets; there is a shortage of 8,000
tons of barbed wire. New searchlights are needed; 300,000 box
respirators are needed for the American Forces.
I could fill many pages with matter of the same sort. The poison of the
submarine war began to have its cumulative effect just when we were
getting the most peremptory reminders that Supply was going to be the
determining factor of the final struggle, that war had become more and
more a matter of striking at the enemy's life by striking at "the means
whereby he lives." Munitions, food, equipment, railways, roads,
ships--these had become the most important factors, and victory would
incline to the Force which could best concentrate the means to maintain
an overwhelming force at some particular point, which could best
develop, conserve, and transport its material. The field for the
strategist had moved more and more from the Front line towards the Base.
Fortunately, the British Army in France had for its Q.M.G. at this
crisis a man with the courage and the knowledge to carry through a
drastic reorganisation of the Supply and Transport services.
Lieutenant-General Sir Travers Clarke, who took over as Q.M.G., France,
at the end of 1917, was a daring experiment on Lord Haig's part; for he
was a comparative youngster to be put into a post which was then the
most anxious and onerous in the Army, and his actual substantive rank
was that of a major; but he was an acting Major-General with a fine
record in a minor theatre of the war. Lord Haig knew his man well,
though, and, what was just as necessary, knew how to back his man. He
put Sir Travers Clarke in the saddle and kept him there in spite, I have
no doubt, of many thunderous protests from influential quarters, for Sir
Travers Clarke was a ruthless reformer and a stubborn upholder of any
course of action he thought necessary. A character sketch of him that
appeared in the _Morning Post_ in 1919 is worth quoting in part:
[Illustration: LIEUT-GENERAL SIR TRAVERS CLARKE]
"'That big young man,' was a leading American officer's term to describe
Sir Travers Clarke after he had met him in France in Conference, and had
not caught his name. British G.H.Q. perhaps only learned to appreciate
the Q.M.G. fully from the comments of foreign officers who came into
touch with him in 1918. The masterful man took his power so quietly,
came to big decisions with such an air of ease, such an absence of
anything dramatic or violent, that it was a little difficult to
understand his full strength.
"'T.C.'--as often before remarked, the British Army must reduce
everything and everyone to initials--as a regimental officer in the
'Nineties never seemed to get an opening. Nor did his early Staff work
bring him much recognition. But an officer of his to-day, who was a
clerk under him when he was first a Staff Captain, insists that he
always gave the impression of great power in reserve. 'He believed in
the British Army, in hard work, and in himself.' That was the foundation
of the career of a man who, once an opening showed, forged ahead with
marvellous speed to his destiny.
"It took 'T.C.' ten years to become a major; within the next ten years
he had become Lieutenant-General and Quartermaster-General to the
British Armies in France. One year in that post, a year in which were
crowded all the experiences that a great Army could have, marked him as
a great leader of men and a superb organiser. How much the Allied
victory owes to him a grateful country will not appreciate fully until
not only the British but also the French and American campaigns are
analysed.
"'T.C.' had the ideal personality for a military leader. You were always
dreadfully afraid of him and sincerely fond of him. No general ever
made sterner demands on his officers and men. If you could not stand up
to a gruelling day's work and come up smiling for the next day's and the
next day's, until the need had passed, you were no use, and you moved on
to some less exacting sphere. But you were working under a worker, and
you found yourself part of a massive machine which was rolling flat all
obstacles. That made it easy. Further, there was the most generous
appreciation of good work and a keen personal sympathy.
"Sir Travers Clarke has one rule to which he never permitted an
exception: that it is the fighting man who has to be considered first
and last. In France he was quite willing that the Staff should labour to
the extreme point of endurance to take any of the load off the man in
the trenches. He did not like about him men, however clever, who had not
seen fighting. It was the first duty of the Staff, he insisted, to enter
with the completest sympathy into the feelings and the difficulties of
the fighting man. 'Bad Staff work mostly arises from not knowing the
differences between an office and a trench,' was one of his aphorisms."
* * * * *
This is not a history of the war; nor a contribution to any of the
numerous war controversies; it is merely a sketch of life at G.H.Q. as
it appeared to a Staff Officer; but I cannot help obtruding a reply to
some current criticisms of Lord Haig: that he was too inclined to stand
by his officers, that he was reluctant to "butcher" a man, and that in
consequence he did not get the highest standard of efficiency.
Faithfulness to his friends and servants was certainly a marked
characteristic of Lord Haig as Commander-in-Chief. He chose his men
cautiously and, I believe, with brilliant insight. Having chosen them he
stood by them faithfully in spite of press or political or service
thunderings, unless he was convinced that they were not equal to their
work.
It is a characteristic which, even allowing that there was an odd case
of over-indulgence, of giving a man a little too much benefit of the
doubt, worked on the whole for the good. Men do not do their best work
with ropes round their necks; and I believe that a great newspaper
magnate whose motto at first was "Sack, Sack, Sack," very soon found out
that it was a mistake.
In this particular instance I suppose the Commander-in-Chief had
powerful urging often enough to "butcher" his Q.M.G., who did things of
so disturbing a character. He did not; and the event proved him right,
as it did in practically every one of his great trusts during the war.
* * * * *
Reorganisation of Supply and Transport filled the attention of G.H.Q.
during the early months of 1918. Over a curiously wide range of subjects
swept a wave of reform and retrenchment. As I have already told, there
was a definite organisation to collect the salvage of the battlefields,
an organisation which saved millions of money in rags, bottles,
waste-paper, swill, bones and grease as well as in the more obvious
matters of shell-cases and derelict arms and ammunition. An Agricultural
Directorate was set to work to grow potatoes and oats and vegetables and
other food stuffs behind the lines. Rations were judiciously reduced, a
substantial difference being left in favour of the man in the actual
fighting line as compared with the man at the Base. The supply of
certain luxuries at the E.F. canteens was stopped or limited, but it was
provided that the man in the fighting line should suffer less from this
than the man at the Base. Weekly conferences were instituted to discuss
the most economical use of labour, of material and of plant. Every
matter great and small had searching attention, and the British Army
began to be run like an up-to-date competitive business. Some of the
injudicious laughed. They christened the General in charge of Salvage
"O.C. Swills" and "Rags and Bones." They could not "see" a Colonel whose
mission in life was to cut down laundry costs and arrange for the
darning of the men's socks when they came out of the wash.
But all these things had to do with the winning of the war. It is a fact
that if the lavishness of 1914-15-16-17 had been carried into 1918 we
could not have won the war, because we should have been bankrupt of
material.
G.H.Q. at the dawn of the Spring of 1918 was very serious in mind, but
not so much so as to fail to get some amusement as well as interest out
of the various new ideas in military administration; and fully confident
now that the people at Home were going to stick it out. In this
connection there was often mentioned with cheerfulness a London
bye-election towards the end of 1917 for an area which had had special
attention from the German air-raids. Some rather expected to see a
candidate come forward from among the little group known as "Pacifists,"
who would seek votes on the plea that the best way to stop air-raids
quickly and to get out of the discomforts of the war would be to meet
half-way the proposals of the Germans who were trying for an
inconclusive peace.
What actually happened was quite different. A candidate came forward
under the banner of the Government, pledged to the Government's
programme of carrying on the war until German militarism was crushed and
Germany made reparation for the ruin she had wrought in Europe. This
candidate had the support of both the old political parties. Against him
there came out another candidate. Did this candidate seek to win votes
by pleading for a friendly consideration of Germany's hypocritical peace
proposals? He did not. From what one could gather of the feeling of the
electorate, if he had done so he would have been ducked in the nearest
pond. No, his appeal was based on the plea that the Government candidate
did not go far enough in hostility to Germany, and that that gentleman
was not fully in favour of carrying to German homes the dastardly
air-war which Germany waged on a civilian population.
Then a third candidate appeared on the scene. He was not for any
half-hearted policy. His cry to the electors was that neither of the
other two candidates was sufficiently earnest in regard to the war
against Germany. His programme was of one clause only, the necessity of
bombing Germany out of her barbarism. He did not believe that any method
of sweet reasonableness was of any use. A thousand tons of bombs daily
on Berlin, and a ration in proportionate scale on other German towns,
was his idea.
Women speakers came to take part in the contest. Did they advocate
making concessions to the German desire to sneak away from the
consequences of the crime of 1914? They did not. They were more vigorous
than any of the men speakers in demanding a full measure of reprisal on
Germany. No one throughout the whole contest whispered "peace."
It was altogether inspiriting. Here was a chance to see what the people
of England, the people who stood behind the Army and the Navy and were
our ultimate supports, felt about the war. We could see that they were
utterly resolute, with not a sign of weariness, nor of fear, nor of
tolerance for a craven peace. Their message was "Fight on, Fight on.
Bring us home a real peace. We will put up with everything the Boche can
do; we will carry on. But no palter, no surrender. Finish the job you
are at."
The English people terrorised? Not a bit of it. They were only getting
their blood up. And G.H.Q. saw that and was comforted.
There was also a good deal of solid comfort in the way that London took
the bitter experience of "rations." We never had any food scarcity in
the Army and, going on leave, officer or soldier had a food card that
guaranteed him a good holiday supply. So we were in the best position to
appreciate the cheerful way in which Great Britain took the very thin
gruel of ration times. Every officer coming back from leave expressed
his glowing admiration of civilian patience.
Those German agents in London who relieved the tedium of the war for the
Allies by reporting to Berlin such "happenings" as the Battle of Oxford
Street and the destruction of whole quarters of London by air attacks,
set out, for the fooling of the German public, some fine accounts of
dismay and discontent caused by food tickets. But as a matter of truth,
London on rations surprised and gratified the most cheerful optimists.
The old city "took her medicine" not only with patience but with an
actual gaiety.
To sum up: between the close of the fighting season of 1917 and the
beginning of that of 1918, G.H.Q. was at first a little depressed at the
thought that political developments would prevent the Army from seeing
the job through in a satisfactory way; was subsequently reassured as to
the feeling of the civilian population; and thereafter faced the future
with complete confidence.
CHAPTER XVI.
ENTER THE AMERICANS.
How the Germans were misled about the Americans--Early American
fighters--The arrivals in May, 1918--American equipment--Our relations
with the Americans and what they thought of us--The Portuguese.
There are many claimants for the honour of being the War Winner. When I
was in Italy in February, 1918, I found a very genuine belief there that
the Italians were the genuine war winners; that they brought the
decisive weight to bear. Without denying the very useful effect that
Italian neutrality had in the first stages of the war, and Italian
participation at a later date, I think it would be hard to convince,
say, the French of the soundness of the Italian claim. The British might
be more inclined to agree; for they still keep up the curious pose of
being a poor feckless people who never do anything or know anything.
Another claimant for the pride of first place in the Grand Alliance is
Greece; and I believe that Portugal has some idea of putting in a claim.
But on the whole, taking all the circumstances into account and
reckoning not war services only but war effect, the actual final blow to
the Germans' hopes was delivered when the United States of America
declared war. It was when Germany made that declaration necessary, in
spite of the sincere wish of the Americans to keep out of the war, that
all hope vanished of Germany securing an arranged peace. From that
moment it was clear that ultimately she would have to take exactly what
was handed out to her at the conclusion of the war.
It is hard to believe that the German leaders ever seriously believed
the stuff and nonsense that they gave out to comfort their people on the
subject of American participation in the war. But having blundered by
bringing the United States in they had to try to cover up their
blunders.
German diplomacy was not without successes of a kind in the preparation
and prosecution of the war. If it is the function of diplomacy to plot
murders and strikes and arsons in neutral countries, to bribe Oriental
despots such as those of Turkey and Bulgaria into betraying their
people, German diplomacy had a proud record. But concerning the
sentiments and opinions of honourable communities German diplomacy
showed always an abysmal ignorance. In no respect was this more clear
than in its dealings with the United States of America.
At first German diplomacy adopted the idea which was embodied in the
German phrase "those idiotic Yankees"--the idea that the United States
was a kind of Wild West Show, whose simpleton rulers could be fooled
without trouble by the intelligent, the super-intelligent, Germans. When
that idea was exploded, the next to take its place was equally
foolish--that anyhow the antagonism of the United States did not matter,
for she would not make war, and if she made war the effort would be so
feeble as not to be worth considering.
Then when the grim shadow of the great American preparation was already
over the German despotism, and the greatest single white nation of the
world was seen preparing its mighty strength to the full, the German
people were asked to take comfort from yet another delusion, that the
American nation would prove to be a "quitter," that it would be
frightened off the field by the German offensive of the Spring of 1918.
The _Hamburger Echo_ voiced that delusion when it announced: "It is
curious that at this critical moment American war experts are reported
to be planning an inspection trip of the Front. It looks as though
American capitalists were growing nervous. The dollar-republic has
stolen ships which ensure her a great Fleet, but American capital is not
unlimited, hence the liquidation of the war may be contemplated."
How different the truth about that "inspection trip" which had the
effect, certainly, of impressing the American Staff with the extreme
seriousness of the campaign, but led to the result not of "quitting" but
of brigading the American troops temporarily with those of the Allies.
It was an instance of a sensible sacrifice of national vanity that has
probably no parallel in history--that decision of the Americans to allow
their soldiers to fight under British and French flags while they
learned their business.
Unhappy German people to have been fed by their leaders with such
delusions! The United States a "quitter"! Had any German read the
history of the 18th and 19th centuries--heard of Washington, of
Hamilton, of Lincoln? If the German had searched back only so far as
1861 he would have found that the nation which he was told might throw
up the sponge at the first hint of hardship and danger, faced a war
which probably, for nerve strain and call for grim resolution, surpassed
even this great war. The United States had then to fight not a foreign
foe but domestic discord. It had to set its teeth through a series of
great military disasters. It had to hold firmly to a forlorn hope,
whilst it was faced by the ever-present prospect of foreign
interference. No nation in modern times has been put to a harsher test
of courage and resolution than the United States in 1861 and the
following year. No nation in history showed a more indomitable courage.
And this was the nation that the German leaders would fain persuade
their people was likely to prove a "quitter!" I ventured to say at the
time that before the German military despotism was through with the war
it would recognise that the reluctance of the United States to enter the
war would be matched by the reluctance of the United States to go out of
the war until its purpose was finally accomplished.
* * * * *
To tell the story of the American participation in the war does not come
within the province of this work, but some of the facts can be told of
that most dramatic feature of the last stages of the Great War.
There was a very elaborate and very successful mystification of the
enemy over the time, the extent, and the equipment of American arrivals
on the Western Front. The American "Intelligence," in co-operation with
our own and the French Intelligence Branches, managed to surround these
matters with so much mystery that some of our own high Staff Officers
never knew the exact position, and strangely over-estimated the strength
of the American Force on the Western Front. There is good reason to
believe that the German High Command was completely deceived and found
its difficulties increased accordingly.
From almost the first day of the war there were a few individual
Americans fighting for the Allies. In September, 1914, I encountered two
personally with the British Army, and I suppose the actual total number
was some hundreds. Later a great many came over with the Canadian
contingents; and there was also a flying unit, which made a fine
reputation for itself. This began with a small group of Americans in the
Foreign Legion of the French Army. In the spring of 1915 the formation
of an American squadrilla was decided upon. At first the French Minister
of War was not inclined to sanction the proposition, but afterwards
decided that no international law prevented Americans from enlisting
voluntarily, in spite of their country's neutrality. The squadrilla was
to be known as the "Escadrille Américaine," and to be commanded by a
French captain. On November 16th, 1916, Colonel Barès, Chief of the
French Aviation at General Headquarters, decided that the name
"Escadrille Américaine" must be dropped and the official military
number, N124, used in future. The reason given was that Bernstorff had
protested to Washington "that Americans were fighting on the French
Front, that the French _communiqués_ contained the name 'Escadrille
Américaine,' and that these volunteer Americans pushed their brazenness
to the point of having a red Sioux Indian in full war-paint depicted on
their machines." Captain Berthaud, at the Ministry of War, suggested the
adoption of the name "Escadrille de Volontaires," but the name finally
adopted was "Lafayette Escadrille." More than 200 American volunteers
entered the Lafayette Escadrille before America joined in the war. Some
remained in the squadrilla, others were transferred to various French
units, where they frequently distinguished themselves by the brilliance
of their exploits.
All these troops, however, were strictly unofficial and of course
discountenanced by the American Government. After the American
declaration of war, American help was confined for a long time to labour
units, forestry and railway workers. It was not until May, 1918, that
there was any really considerable American fighting force in France, and
not until June, 1918, that it began to have any weight in the fighting
line, and then only as units brigaded with British and French troops. It
was the usual plan--a plan made possible by the admirable and
business-like lack of false pride among the Americans--to split up their
troops among other troops, allow them thus to be "blooded," and after
experience as platoons, companies, brigades, to retire to their own
training grounds and form "pukka" Divisions of their own.
By April 25th, 1918, there were 12,700 American troops in our lines in
France, by May 25th 79,000, by June 25th 188,000. Then the Second Army
Corps was formed and absorbed 95,000 men. The May, 1918, programme
provided for the arrival of six American Divisions within the British
zone of operations, and there actually were 108,921 American troops
attached to the British Army at the end of that month. The British Army
took responsibility for the feeding and equipment of these troops. The
system was adopted of assigning to each American Division as it arrived
a British "mother" Division, to see it through its early troubles of
transport, equipment, food and accommodation. The system worked
admirably and there was very little friction in connection with the
settling down of the Americans. Yet the task of adjustment was not easy.
The American troops had to be equipped with almost everything except
uniforms, badges and caps. The things they had were almost as much a
cause of trouble as the things they had not. The American troops had to
be gently separated from huge kits of unnecessary articles at the same
time as they were provided with necessities.
Judging from the mountainous kits of the American soldiers as they
arrived it was thought that each man carried a roll-top desk, a
typewriter, and a dictagraph in his roll. It was found impossible for
the men to march with their kits, though they were splendid physical
types and full of keenness. I saw one Division disentrain at a station
on Lines of Communication and begin a march to its camp, a distance of
about ten miles. Before half the distance had been covered a great
proportion of the men had had to give up their kits to be stored by the
road side.
One American camp was formed at Samer near Montreuil; and the town's
name was pronounced near enough to "Sammie" to make it easy to persuade
some of the soldiers that it had been named in their honour.
The Americans at first had a natural love for their own methods and
their own wonderful kit; but they were very soon convinced of what were
the practical needs of the campaign and came in time to a whole-hearted
admiration of British methods, which was perhaps the finest testimonial
that G.H.Q. could have had. These Americans coming from a great business
country confessed quite frankly that the "effete" Britisher had "got
them all beat" on questions of supply and transport; and they took over
our system in almost every detail.
Perhaps some of the points that arose will be of interest. The great
underclothing controversy was one of the most amusing. The British Army
had evolved a very practical system of keeping the troops in clean
underclothing without adding to the weight of their kits. A soldier
went up to the trenches or to his unit wearing a clean suit of
underclothes. On the first opportunity, usually within a week, the
soldier went back (on relief if he were an infantry man, on roster if he
were a special unit man) to the Baths which were set up in every
Divisional area. Here he stripped for a hot bath, and whilst he was in
the bath his uniform was cleaned, deprived of any insect population, and
pressed, and his underclothing was taken away to the laundry. He never
saw that underclothing again but drew a new suit, or a clean suit, as he
went out of the baths; and so he marched off spruce and smart. The suit
of underclothing he had left behind was thoroughly disinfected, washed,
repaired if necessary, and went then into the general stock to be issued
again.
At first the Americans could not see that such a system would work.
Their idea was for every man to carry three suits of underclothing, one
on his body two in his kit. Presumably he was expected to change in the
midst of the ghastly mud of a Flanders trench. Also presumably he was
expected to carry about his dirty suits with him, which showed a curious
degree of trust in human nature. It was objected to the British system
that "all men were not the same size," and in response it was pointed
out that neither were all the suits of underclothing kept in stock at
Divisional Baths, but that with a fair attention to the law of averages
and a reasonable surplus allowance no thin man had to go away with a fat
man's suit and no tall man with a short man's. The British system was
finally adopted and won full American approval.
Boots caused another difficulty. The British issue was one pair per man;
the American, two, the spare pair being carried in the kit. The
Americans finally agreed that if they could get for their men boots of
British quality (which was conspicuously better than the American
quality) the one pair issue would suffice.
It would be impossible to praise too highly the common-sense and
civility of the American _liaison_ officers who had to argue out these
points with our officers. They were never unreasonable, and were very
prompt in crediting our officers with politeness and good-will. That
Americans and British can get on very well together this campaign has
proved. I think that in every case where an American and a British
Division were thrown together they parted company with a marked increase
of mutual good-will and respect.
Optimism was the prevailing fault in the American organisation. They
thought that the fighting was a much simpler matter than it actually
proved to be. They thought a man could and would carry an unduly heavy
pack. They were very optimistic in the matter of accoutrements and were
anxious to use their own accoutrements when they had a barely sufficient
supply for the strength of a unit, and no reserve. They were ultimately
convinced that accoutrements in warfare have a way of disappearing, and
without a strong reserve no item of accoutrement can be kept up. When
there was no reserve of some item, British accoutrements were
substituted. It is a testimony to the quality of British equipment that
the American troops showed a desire to be provided with British articles
in substitution for their own, even when the change was not necessary.
British puttees and British breeches were cases in point.
The American troops got British rations, except that coffee took the
place of tea. One coffee-grinder per 250 men was provided. Perhaps
civilian England was puzzled over the fact that in 1918 it was
impossible to buy a coffee-grinder in this country. Now they know why.
They had all been bought up for the American troops. In all things
G.H.Q. did its very best for the Americans. They had a fancy for an
increased scale of Machine-Guns; the Machine-Guns were found for them,
though they were a precious and scarce commodity at the time and we
could not give our own Divisions the increased scale. To provide horse
transport for the Americans we stripped our Field Artillery of two
horses out of every ammunition team of six. The general principle was
that if the Americans wanted anything it had to be found somehow and
found in a hurry. Probably we won an undeserved reputation for slickness
in some matters (such as printing Army publications), for it was the
established rule to give American orders priority.
American _liaison_ officers at G.H.Q. "made good" with the British Staff
very quickly. They had a downright earnestness of manner which was very
engaging. The American Staff seemed to have been chosen strictly for
efficiency reasons and, there being no obstacles of established custom
to overcome, the best men got to the top very quickly. The appointment
of Mr. Frederick Palmer, the famous war correspondent, to a high post on
General Pershing's Intelligence Staff was an example of their way of
doing things. Colonel Palmer as war correspondent had seen much of this
and of many other wars. For his particular post he was an ideal man. But
it would be difficult to imagine him stepping at once into so high a
position in a European Army.
American rank marks were puzzling to British officers at first. An
American _liaison_ officer obliged me with a mnemonic aid to their
understanding.
"You just reckon that you are out to rob a hen-roost. Right. You climb
up one bar; that's a lieutenant. You climb up two bars: that's a
captain. When you get up to the chickens, that's the colonel" (the
colonel's badge was an eagle on the shoulder-straps). "Above the chicken
there's the stars" (a star was the badge of a general).
To the same officer I was indebted for a flattering summing up of
British character.
"I don't say you British people are over-polite. But you are reliable.
Go into a pow-wow and a British officer may strike you as a bit surly.
But if he says he'll do a thing you can reckon that thing done and no
need to worry. Some other people are very polite; and they say awfully
nicely that they'll do anything and everything you ask; and six months
after you find nothing has been done."
* * * * *
The Americans, when they got into action, first as auxiliaries of
British and French Divisions, then in their own Army organisation, were
fine fighters. Their splendid physique made them very deadly in a close
tussle, and they had a business-like efficiency in battle that did not
appeal to the Boche. A favourite American weapon at close quarters was a
shot gun sawn off short at the barrel. It was of fearful effect. The
enemy had the sublime impudence to protest against this weapon as
"contrary to the usages of civilised warfare." This was cool indeed from
the folk who made us familiar with the murder of civil hostages, the
use of civilians as fire-screens, and the employment of poison-gas as
methods of warfare. The Americans answered the impudent protest with
peremptory firmness, and kept the shot gun in use.
It was stated, too, and generally credited, though this matter did not
come within my personal observation, that the American Divisions in
their sector set up and maintained a law in regard to Machine-Gun fire.
They did not consider it fair war that a machine-gunner in an entrenched
position should keep on firing to the very last moment and then expect
to be allowed to surrender peaceably.
The Americans played the game, but they did not play it on "soft" lines,
and the enemy soon got a very wholesome respect for them. There was, in
the early stages of the American participation, an evident attempt on
the part of the German Intelligence to encourage an "atrocity" campaign
against the Americans. German atrocities had a way of casting their
shadows before. A usual method was to accuse Germany's foes in advance
of doing what the Germans proposed to undertake themselves. That was the
way in which Germany ushered in her lawless use of prisoners of war in
the firing line, and her enslavement of the civil population of occupied
Belgium and France. When the German Press engaged in "propaganda" work
on the subject of the American forces coming into action, it took the
line of representing the Americans as altogether despicable and
murderous adventurers, who had come into the war to kill Germans without
any reason whatsoever and when taken prisoners wondered "that they were
not shot on the spot, as the French had told them they would be." As one
German paper put it: "To the question why America carries on the war
against Germany they knew no answer. One can feel for our soldiers who
become enraged against this alien hand which fights against us for no
reason. Our men believe the French fight for glory and to wipe out the
stain of 1870, that Britain struggles for mastery on the sea and to
prove which of the two giants is the stronger. But the American! Our
field-greys despise him and do not recognise him as a worthy opponent,
even though he may fight bravely."
But that sort of talk was soon dropped--as was the suggestion that
American prisoners should get "special treatment" when captured. It was
rather amusing to watch from our Intelligence side the manoeuvres of the
well-drilled German Press on the subject of the Americans. Early in 1918
there was a general disposition in the German papers to write of the
Americans as tomahawkers and "scalpers" and so on. Then we learned from
our tapping of German field reports that officers commanding German
units complained that this sort of propaganda was having such a bad
effect on their men, that they "got the wind up" as soon as they knew
that Americans were in front of them. As a result a great silence
suddenly fell upon the German papers on this point.
After the Americans had formed their own Army system we did not hear so
much of them at Montreuil. But they were naturally always in close touch
with G.H.Q., and to the very end the British Administrative services
were able to give a helping hand to the American allies.
* * * * *
The Portuguese contingent remained with the British Army to the end, and
it did very well, as might have been expected; for as a race the
Portuguese have a proud record of heroism and knightly adventure. In the
Indies, the South Pacific, and the Americas, Portuguese valour has left
imperishable monuments. The British Empire in particular owes much to
such great sea captains as the Portuguese Vasco di Gama (who discovered
the sea route to India), Torres (who discovered and named Australia),
Magellan, Quiros, and Menezes.
We heard much amusing gossip at G.H.Q. from the soldiers at the Front,
who, after a critical weighing of the facts, arrived at the conclusion
that the Portuguese were "good sports." That conclusion was not come to
all at once. The British soldier is very conservative, and he was
inclined to be, for some reason or other, critical of his new allies at
first. In time "Tommy" forgave the Portuguese for having names "that
sounded like blooming prayers," which was one of his early reasons for
doubt. Here is one incident that helped to determine a favourable
verdict:
A forward post held by the Portuguese was subjected to a furious
bombardment late one afternoon by the Germans. After a while a polite
note came down from the Portuguese officer in charge of the sector
informing the British Commander that: "The enemy are heavily bombarding
our position. Accordingly we have evacuated it."
There was some inclination to criticise; it was not the withdrawal; the
best soldiers on earth have to withdraw sometimes. But the polite little
note with its "accordingly" suggested what it was not intended to
suggest, and what was not the fact at all. However, plans were at once
put in hand for artillery action, preparatory to restoring the position
next morning. But some time after nightfall those plans were put aside
on receipt of another polite little note:
"The enemy has ceased bombarding our position. Accordingly we have
re-occupied it."
When the full facts of the incident came out there was a cheer for the
Portuguese. It seems that the officer in charge was a bit of a
tactician and knew his men well. The post he had to hold was very
advanced and poorly fortified. When the enemy began to flood it with
shells he withdrew his garrison to a safe spot that he had selected, and
waited until nightfall. Then, without any artillery preparation, he led
his men forward and, with the bayonet and those deadly little daggers
that the Portuguese soldiers carried, restored the position.
An earlier incident of the Portuguese co-operation was humorous in
another way. "Tommy" had, of course, found a name for the new arrivals,
a name which was more humorous than respectful. Like all Tommy's
word-coinages it was a good one and spread into common use. High
Authority, fearful that offence would be given, issued an order, a very
portentous order, which noticed with reprobation "the habit which had
grown up" of referring to "our noble allies" as "the ---- ----." The
Order concluded with the usual warning of disciplinary action. It was to
be circulated secretly by word of mouth from officer to officer, but
some unfortunate adjutant circulated it in battalion orders so that all
could read--including the Portuguese.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE GERMAN SPRING OF 1918.
Was G.H.Q. at fault?--Where we could best afford to lose
ground--Refugees complicate the situation--Stark resolution of the
French--All the Pas-de-Calais to be wrecked if necessary--How our
railways broke down--Amiens does not fall.
To affirm that a great German attack was expected in the Spring of 1918,
and that the site of the attack was not altogether unexpected, seems to
imply a very serious criticism of G.H.Q. That being so, why did the
Germans succeed in breaking through and winning such an extent of
territory and coming within a narrow margin of gaining a decisive
advantage?
The question is natural, especially as one soldier in high command has
stated--or is reported to have stated--that he knew exactly the spot
where the Germans were going to attack. Some day there will be an
exhaustive inquiry into all the circumstances of the Spring of 1918.
Probably as a result it will be found that no serious blame can be
attached in any quarter, but that what happened was the result of a
series of events which were mostly unavoidable.
For the first time Germany could concentrate her whole strength on this
Front. Yet our strength was at the lowest point it had reached for many
months and, since we had just taken over a new sector of the line, our
defence was thinner on the average than it had ever been since 1915.
Further, we were definitely short of some essential defence material. If
we had strengthened the sector where the chief attack came we should
have had to weaken another sector. Then the Germans would have attacked
that sector. They chose, and chose naturally, the point where our line
was thinnest. If it can be shown that the sector where our line was
thinnest was the sector in which we could best afford to lose ground, it
will have to be admitted that, in the main, G.H.Q. had made the best
dispositions possible with the means at hand.
A glance at the map of France will show that pretty clearly. Put in a
phrase, the German plan was to push the British Army into the sea. In
the north our line was dangerously close to the sea. Our most northern
port, Dunkirk, was actually under shell-fire and in consequence could be
very little used. A very small gain of territory by the Germans in the
north would have brought Calais and Boulogne under shell-fire. Then our
existence as an Army north of the Somme would have become impossible. We
could not have kept an adequate force there in supplies. In the north
every yard of territory was of the greatest strategic value. As our line
ran south the French coast bulged out. We had more room to manoeuvre
there; loss of ground was not so vital. If the Germans had won on the
line Ypres-Armentières the same depth of territory that they won on the
line Arras-Péronne, we should have had to evacuate all France north of
the Somme.
In short we took the biggest risk of loss of ground where the loss was
least dangerous to the vital plan of the campaign. In the light of the
man-power available it was probably the best course that could have been
pursued. We knew we had to lose ground, probably a good deal of ground,
and decided to lose it where it mattered least. We had very good ideas
as to where.
For proof of this look up the representations as to civilian evacuations
which were made by G.H.Q. to the French authorities in February, 1918.
Those representations, by the way, were not given any attention at all
in some cases; at the best only perfunctory attention. The result was
that when the German attack came, civilian refugees added to our
difficulties and anxieties. If the prompt and complete evacuation of all
civilian refugees from threatened areas and from areas close behind the
front line, which were urgently needed for the accommodation of troops,
could have been effected, the Army's tasks would have been much
simplified. But that proved impracticable. Civilians were generally
unwilling to abandon their homes voluntarily. The French authorities
were reluctant to enforce evacuation. A civilian quitting his home
voluntarily was responsible for his own keep. A civilian forced to quit
became a charge on the French Civil Authorities. This naturally led to a
wish that civilians as far as possible should be compelled to quit their
homes by force of circumstances rather than by order of the authorities.
As far back as February, 1918, pressure was brought to bear on the
French Authorities to agree to defined measures to meet the emergency of
a withdrawal of part of our line, which was then foreseen as a
probability. But it was not found possible to secure prompt assent to
the steps which were necessary. There were all sorts of complications.
For one thing it was feared that to set up the machinery of evacuation
would spread dismay among the French civilians. Another obstacle was the
financial one which I have already mentioned. Yet another was that
created by the status of the miners in threatened areas. These were
mobilised men under French Military Command; their wives and children
were civilians. If their wives and children were evacuated the miners
would not stay.
Later, arrangements were agreed to between the British Force and the
French Authorities for the systematic evacuation, with their live stock
and supplies, of civilians in threatened areas. But the early
difficulties considerably hampered operations. I mention this not at all
by way of a tilt against the French Authorities, whose reluctance to
make provision for evacuations was natural enough, but to show that
G.H.Q. was not "caught napping," and to illustrate also the difficulties
which an Expeditionary Force operating in a friendly country has to
meet.
There are, of course, many advantages springing from the fact that the
country in which you are quartered is friendly. But I am not sure that
the disadvantages are not almost as great. In an enemy country you know
at any rate where you are; military safety, military convenience are the
supreme law; and the civilian population have only to be considered to
the degree that the laws of war and the dictates of humanity decide. In
a friendly country, where the old civil government remains in operation,
an Army is hampered at many points. There are various actions which
military convenience prompts but which cannot be taken without the
assent of the civilian authorities; and perhaps cannot be urged with the
weight of the full facts on those civil authorities. This evacuation
difficulty is an instance in point. If G.H.Q. had had its way the
Germans would have won far less material in their advance; and perhaps
their advance would have been stopped at an earlier stage if our
operations had not been hampered to some extent by the crowding of the
road with civilian refugees.
Still, on the big issues the French were splendid. What, for example,
could have been more heroic than the decision they came to a little
later: that, in case of the German advance continuing, the whole of the
Pas de Calais province was to be destroyed, the harbours of Dunkirk,
Calais and Boulogne wrecked, the dykes and locks destroyed so that the
country would have been generally inundated?
To some degree defensive inundations were actually carried into effect,
but with fresh water only. The responsibility in the main rested with
the British Army which was holding the threatened territory. The only
saving stipulation made by the French, who thus offered in the cause of
the alliance to give up for half a century the use of one of their
fairest provinces, was that before the sea was let in to devastate the
land, Marshal Foch should give the word. It was on April 12th, 1918,
that the Allied Commander-in-Chief gave orders for defensive inundations
to stop the Germans from getting to the Dunkirk-Calais region; and on
April 13th the Governor of Dunkirk began to put these into effect. There
were two schemes of inundation, one for a modified flooding with fresh
water of certain limited areas; the other for a general flooding, with
sea-water as well as fresh water, of all low-lying areas around Calais
and Dunkirk.
It is impossible to praise adequately the stark courage that agreed to
this step. It was courage after the antique model, and it showed that
France was willing to make any sacrifice rather than allow the wave of
German barbarism to sweep over civilisation. The effect of letting the
sea in on Pas de Calais and destroying the canal locks and the harbours
would have been to make this great province a desert for two
generations. The effect of allowing it to fall into German hands, with
all its canal and harbour facilities, would have been to give new life
to the submarine war, to make the bombardment and ultimately the
invasion of the English coast possible.
At one time it seemed almost certain that an evacuation of at least part
of Pas de Calais would have to be carried out; and arrangements were
made in detail: that in any area which was evacuated, either
deliberately or in consequence of direct enemy pressure, the most
thorough destruction should be carried out to deny to the enemy any
stores of material or facilities of transport. The method of every
destruction and the unit responsible for it were arranged in advance.
The main lines of a policy of destruction were laid down in the event
of:--
1. A withdrawal to the Calais--St. Omer defensive line;
2. A withdrawal to the line of the Somme;
3. An enemy advance along the line of the Somme, cutting off
Flanders and Pas de Calais from the South.
Provision was made for the using up or removal of all possible stores;
for the destruction of the remainder; for the destruction of all
railroads, water-ways, signalling systems, factories, etc. Where British
and French troops were operating together in a fighting zone, their
respective responsibilities were delimited. Arrangements were also made,
in case of withdrawal, to clear from certain water-ways all canal craft
which might serve the enemy as bridge material over inundations.
* * * * *
Certainly it was not "gay," as the French say, this preparation for
destroying the property of an Ally. But we took comfort from the fact
that after all the position was better than in 1914. Then a German
victory seemed possible. Now in 1918 the only question was what
sacrifices we should yet have to make before achieving victory. In 1914,
after 50 years of intensive preparation, the German had rushed upon an
unsuspecting Europe. He neglected nothing in preparing for victory. He
threw overboard every scruple in order to secure a rapid triumph,
violating the neutrality of Belgium and Luxemburg merely because by so
doing he gained a better field of deployment. His objective was Paris,
and, according to authoritative accounts, his plan on reaching Paris was
to divide it up into twelve quarters and burn down a quarter every day
that the French Army delayed to surrender. The terms of surrender were
to include the giving up of the French Fleet and the French ports for
use in an invasion of England.
The danger at that time was very real. Germany was the only country
adequately armed and organised. The British people had had to sacrifice
in great measure the Regular Army to stay the first German onset. France
was strained to a point which to any other country would have meant
exhaustion. We could recall the preparations that had to be made to meet
the imminent fear of an invasion of the British coast; the desperate
shifts and expedients which had to be adopted in the first stages of the
organisation of the New Armies; the peremptory demands for guns and
shells when there were no factories to make either in anything like the
quantity demanded. That was a time when it needed the highest of moral
courage to remain calm and confident.
The Spring of 1918 is not a pleasant thing to think about; but it is
hardly endurable, even now in safe retrospection, to think on the
position of Great Britain at home or in the field from October, 1914, to
September, 1915. It was that of an unsuspecting man before whose feet
suddenly a pit of destruction opens. He falls scrambling, struggling
down, and at last reaches a little ledge which gives a momentary safety.
But it is still a desperate task merely to hang on. Far up, remote
almost as a star, shines safety. Below are his friends of civilised
Europe, all worse situated than himself, some at the point of complete
destruction. From above a fierce storm of missiles rains on his head.
From below come piteous appeals for help. To hold on to his little
ledge, to help the friends below, to climb up and throttle the foe
above--he has all these to do and little time to think before he acts.
Hardly endurable, yet necessary to think over, so that the greatness of
the danger into which the world was plunged by German militarism can be
gauged.
In 1914 an occupation of the French Channel Ports with England almost
entirely unarmed might have been a very serious thing. The serious view
taken of it in Great Britain can be judged from the preparations which
were made to devastate a great area in the South and East of England so
as to give to the Germans only a desert as a foothold. In 1918 if the
Germans had got Pas de Calais they would not have got any ports with
it, and an invading force arriving in England would have met a force at
least equal to it in equipment and war experience.
So we waited in some confidence for another Marne to follow another
Mons, and smiled a little grimly at the change of tone in Germany. The
Kaiser, cock-a-whoop again, was declaring now for a "strong German
Peace." In one office, side by side with the "situation map" which
showed from day to day the depth of the German advance, there were stuck
up in derision extracts from the most vituperative of the German press.
Here is one from the _Deutsche Zeitung_:
"Away with all petty whining over an agreement and reconciliation
with the fetish of peace.... Away with the miserable whimpering of
those people who even now would prevent the righteous German hatred
of England and sound German vengeance. The cry of victory and
retaliation rages throughout Germany with renewed passion."
This from _Germania_:
"There can be no lasting peace and no long period of quiet in the
world until the presumptuous notion that the Anglo-Saxons are the
chosen people is victorious or defeated. We are determined to
force with the sword the peace which our adversaries did not see
fit to confide to our honest word. We Germans are an incomparably
strong nation."
These horrible threats remained on the notice-board until long after the
tide of battle turned and the German was in full retreat back to his
lair.
And we rather liked the story which the German press had to the effect
that a deputation of German business men had put before Hindenburg in
February the gloomy prospects of the country's food supplies,
concluding: "In May, Germany will be almost without food." Hindenburg
thereupon replied: "My reply is that I shall be in Paris on April 1st."
The date chosen seemed so appropriate!
Still, it would be foolish to say that we had no anxieties. Some of our
stoutest fellows were up at "advanced G.H.Q.," a temporary H.Q. near
Amiens, from which most of the really exciting work was done. At
Montreuil we had not the exhilarating feeling of being within the sound
of the guns, but had to face perhaps the hardest of the toil. It was
rare for an officer in some branches to leave his room before midnight,
and the usual hour for starting work was 8.30 a.m. Meals ceased for a
time to be convivial affairs. One rushed to the table, ate, and rushed
back to work.
The work was so overwhelming because of a combination of circumstances.
The character of the War had changed from stationary to moving over
almost all the British Front, calling for a return to the mobile system
of supply and for new classes of material. British reinforcements were
arriving from other Fronts, sometimes without their full supply train
and without the full equipment for our Front, and not familiar with its
system of working. There were large movements of French troops into
British Areas, and in some cases these French troops relied upon British
sources for some of their supplies and transport, and in all cases their
line of supply had to be dove-tailed in with ours. American troops were
moved into British Areas and relied upon British sources for many items
of equipment, transport and supplies. British Administration was thus
being called upon for supplies to British, French, American and
Portuguese troops, at the same time as our lines of supply had to be
re-organised and co-ordinated with the new French lines of supply.
Further difficulties were created by the necessary frequent changes of
railheads and the great movements on the roads of civilian refugees.
Territory threatened by the enemy had to be evacuated as far as possible
of civilians, and of civilian goods and stock likely to be of use to the
enemy in case of capture.
The extent of this accumulated difficulty from a transport point of
view can be gauged from the fact that a British Army needs on a day of
intense fighting 1,934 tons of supplies of all kinds _per mile of
front_.
* * * * *
The railways came as nearly as possible to a complete breakdown under
the strain. After the first Battle of the Somme, our military railway
system in France was thoroughly reorganised by civilian experts. It was
a reorganisation which followed, I believe, the best models of the great
railway companies of England, and it coped with the very heavy traffic
during the period of fixed or Trench War quite well. Unfortunately it
was not a system adapted for moving warfare.
A civilian railway expert would doubtless find many reasons for amused
criticism in a military railway system in the running. It would appear
to be rather haphazard, to be run a good deal on the principle of a
train getting there if it could, and to be very faulty in the matter of
time-tables and so on. Well, the German advance in its brutal practical
way simply riddled with holes that admirable railway reorganisation
which the civilian experts had conferred on the B.E.F., France.
Perhaps it was only to have been expected. Trench War in its railway
requirements was deceptively like peace. You had your railway termini,
and the requirements of a Division were fairly stable. You ran so many
trains a day and, except for an occasional rush on some sector when
fighting warmed up suddenly, there were no problems that differed
greatly from those say of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway.
In moving war it is different. Then a railway system must be elastic
enough to stand such a series of shocks as would be conveyed to the L.B.
and S.C. manager if at 9 p.m. he were told: "It is Bank Holiday
to-morrow. Provide for carrying 100,000 extra passengers, about 10,000
horses and 4,000 carriages." Then at 10 p.m. he learned: "You can't
shunt any trains at Lewes; and you can only run trains through with
luck. It is under heavy shell-fire." Then every half-hour subsequently
he got a new order, diverting traffic from one point to another,
changing the destinations of his trains and so on.
The transport situation for the moment was saved by the Motor Transport.
But the Commander-in-Chief had to act promptly and set up a "jury-mast"
arrangement for railway control to tide over the crisis. In effect he
took the supreme control of the railways out of the hands of the
Transportation Directorate and put it under a "Board of Directors"
meeting daily, at which the Q.M.G. presided. A later development made
the Chief of General Staff Chairman of this Board. Then, when things
settled down, the system that had been set up by the civilian experts
was largely scrapped. Military Railways were again put under the control
of the Quartermaster-General. The "stupid soldiery" did rather well with
them, not only in the period of pause that came between the German
advance and our great counter-attack, but in the gigantic task of
following up our advance.
The task of pulling together the railways was not an easy one. The enemy
advance had caused a direct loss of some light railway systems, and on
the broad-gauge systems important engine depôts were lost, and our front
lateral line was brought at several points under the fire of the enemy's
artillery. Use of this front lateral line had thus become precarious.
The results of this were felt in every part of the railway system. Good
circulation is the essence of railway working; and a block at any point
has an effect similar to that of an aneurism on a human artery. Because
of the loss of engine depôts, and the hindrances to circulation on the
front lateral line, the back lateral line along the coast became
seriously congested. This congestion reduced the capacity of every
engine by an average of 15 per cent.
Further, our rear lateral line had two particularly vulnerable points,
one at Etaples, where it crossed the Canche, and the other at Abbéville,
where it crossed the Somme. Upon these points enemy aircraft made
frequent attacks, imposing delays, occasionally causing minor
destruction, always adding to the effects of the existing congestion.
An excellent piece of work reduced very considerably the effect of
one successful enemy air-raid. Half an hour after midnight, one night
in May, the Canche railway-bridge at Etaples was damaged. At once
an avoiding line--constructed for such an emergency--was put into
operation, and trains were running through at 2 a.m.
On one of the worst nights of the German advance, when we went up to the
situation-map without any enthusiasm, half afraid of what we should see,
young Captain Hannibal Napoleon deepened our gloom by declaring
oracularly:
"If we hold on to Amiens we shall be all right. If Amiens falls to the
Germans it is goodbye to Montreuil, and no more Paris leave for a few
years."
Hannibal Napoleon (that, of course, was not his name) was very junior
and very confident of his strategical genius. It was a favourite
amusement to "pull his leg" and draw from him an "appreciation" of the
situation, which he was always willing to give with the authority of a
Commander-in-Chief.
This oracle was displeasing, because on the appearance of things that
night we had not an earthly chance of holding Amiens. But the
unexpected happened. Not very many hours afterwards the news came
through that a successful stand was being made in front of Amiens; and
young Hannibal Napoleon was able to crow like a Gallic cock over his
profound strategical judgment.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE MOTOR LORRY THAT WAITED.
How a motor lorry waited at the Ecole Militaire to take away the maps to
the Coast--The Motor Lorry Reserve--An "appreciation" of the
position--Germany lost the War in the first three months--Some notes of
German blunders.
One night in the Spring of 1918 a mysterious motor lorry drew up in the
yard of the Ecole Militaire at Montreuil. Its driver reported and was
ordered to stand by. He stood by all that night; and in the morning was
relieved by another driver. But the empty lorry still waited. At night a
relief driver came on duty. But the empty lorry still waited.
[Illustration: THE ECOLE MILITAIRE]
Lorries in those days were precious. Because the German had seized many
of our light railways, had put under his shell-fire our main front
lateral line and had brought our whole railway system to a point
perilously close to collapse, the fate of the British Army was to a
great extent dependent on its motor lorries. By an intuitional stroke
of genius, or of luck, the new Quartermaster-General had just brought to
completion one of his "gyms"--the building up of a G.H.Q. reserve of
motor lorries. There had been all kinds of explanations of that
reserve--mostly of the humorous-malicious order. It had been said that
they were intended to carry about the baggage of the G.H.Q. Generals;
that the reserve had no other reason for being than to find a soft job
for some potentate near to the golf links of the coast. But whether it
was just a guess or a bit of far-seeing on the part of Sir Travers
Clarke, that G.H.Q. Motor Lorry Reserve had been built up; and it was
available to rush into the breach when the railways could not face the
task of supply.
Very nobly the Motor Transport--including that reserve--did its duty.
There were drivers who held the wheel for thirty-six hours at a stretch,
and were lifted from their seats fainting or asleep; a few--who carried
on until no longer able to see through their bloodshot and torturing
eyes--ran their cars into trees or walls or ditches. There were many
casualties, but the situation was saved.
It was just at this time, when a motor lorry was above rubies in value,
that an entirely healthy, well-preserved example, with driver attached,
was ordered to remain in the yard of the Ecole Militaire.
Everyone wanted to know the reason why. The position was then at its
very worst, so the humourist who surmised that it was "waiting for the
wine orders of the ---- Mess," for once found his jape fall flat. The
truth was for a long time known only to a select few. That motor lorry
was told off to carry away the maps and important papers from Montreuil
to the coast, since the evacuation of the town and of all France north
of the Somme was possible at an hour's notice.
So critical was the position for some days that that motor lorry was
never off duty night or day.
But G.H.Q. went about its work unperturbed to all outward seeming, and
there was not a whisper of losing the war, not even from those who knew
what would be the full consequences of evacuating Pas de Calais. One
officer--he would not like his name to be published even now--spoke with
the most frank recognition of facts and yet with a robust confidence
that was distinctly comforting:
"If we go behind the Somme it will give the Germans the Coast from the
Canche right up to the Scheldt for their submarines. That is the most
serious factor. We won't leave them much in the way of harbour works, of
course; but still they will be able in a year or two to restore things a
bit."
"In a year or two? But will it last...?"
"Oh yes, you can give the war another ten years at least in that event.
For there won't be any American Army to speak of; no port to land them
or supply them from. Our British Army will have to come down in strength
for the same reason. You can't keep a bigger army anywhere than you can
keep supplied with food and shells. Look at the ports and the railways.
There will be Havre, Brest, Cherbourg, Bordeaux as ports of supply and
the railways from them as the channels of supply to the front line. No
good talking of millions of Americans pouring in. They can't pour.
Funnel's too narrow."
But there wasn't in that officer's mind a hint of the possibility of
failure.
"It's only a question of organising to get at them. In time weight must
tell. The Germans and their friends are, say, 140,000,000 in population.
The allies who are in the war against them have 600,000,000 of
population and another 400,000,000 of reserve population if Japan came
in fully, and China, and Brazil. I count Russia on neither side, but she
is still a liability more than an asset to the Germans. In money and
resources the odds against them are even greater. I like to go back to
the simple basis of arithmetic sometimes. Of course weight doesn't tell
against skill. But now the skill is about even. The Germans had their
one and only chance at the beginning, the very beginning, of the war;
because they were ready and no one else was. They had to win by
Christmas, 1914, or not to win at all."
He went on to sketch vividly the story of the war up to that date, the
very nadir of our depression. He argued that the enemy had obviously
committed some tremendous blunders. The Prussian military leaders had
been very clever in securing spectacular victories (generally after a
preliminary corruption of some weak section of their opponents) and thus
the military position was not easy to see in its true proportion. But
even a surface consideration must show that whilst Germany was always
announcing victories, she was never really within sight of victory.
"In the first instance the Prussian Empire had made no sound reckoning
of the forces she had to meet. That was the first elementary duty of the
strategist. The man who goes out to fight ten thousand and finds he has
to fight twenty thousand has blundered irreparably. In 1914 Prussia
calculated that Great Britain would not participate in the war, and
would consent not only to the destruction of France but to the betrayal
of her obligations towards Belgium. The bewildered dismay with which
Germany learned that Great Britain would not look upon the treaty with
Belgium as a 'scrap of paper,' the wild hatred toward England which
found one expression in the 'Hymn of Hate,' were the screams of a
savage creature caught in a trap.
"She had then one slender chance, a rush attack on Paris. But the Battle
of the Marne killed that chance. Then the only hope of saving Germany
was to make peace. But she had made the ghastly blunder of the Belgian
atrocities.
"When a man goes out to fight ten thousand and finds himself confronted
by twenty thousand it is common prudence to strive to make the stakes as
low as possible, the penalty of failure as small as possible. There was
a chance that, if that policy had been followed, the war would have come
to an end soon after the Battle of the Marne, an end not favourable to
Prussian ideas of European domination, giving those ideas a severe
check, but still not wrecking them irrevocably nor exacting a very heavy
penalty. But the Prussian spirit added blunder to blunder. Having
launched a hopeless war it set itself to give that war an 'unlimited'
character. Instead of going through Belgium as a reluctant trespasser,
the Prussian army trampled through as a ravaging devastator in full
blast of frightfulness. By the time Prussia had fought and lost the
Battle of the Marne she had steeled her enemies to an inflexible
resolution against a compromise peace."
Prussia, he argued, thus early by two blunders of the first magnitude
(1) entered into a campaign against an alliance which ultimately could
command vastly superior forces, and (2) embittered the conditions of the
campaign so that her withdrawal from it was made exceedingly difficult.
Several blunders of a lesser order marked the first stages of the
campaign. Belgium having been attacked and Liége taken, the Prussian
army showed a strange hesitancy and lack of enterprise when faced by the
little Belgian army on the line Haelen-Tirlemont-Namur. Precious days
were lost in pottering. Whether it was expected that the Belgian nation
would give way after one defeat, or it was thought that French and
British armies had been pushed up into Belgium, the German millions were
held up an unduly long time by the Belgian thousands.
At Mons the German Army neither crushed the French-British force nor
pushed it back so quickly that the main deployment was harassed. Whether
this failure of the German Army was due to its bad handling or to the
excellent virtues of the French-British force, did not matter. But the
Battle of Mons frustrated the only hope that was left to Germany at that
time--a successful rush on Paris opening the way to a quick peace. It
proved that there was no military genius at the head of the German
invaders. Then the Army which had been delayed in Belgium was defeated
on the Marne and had to fall back on the Aisne. The explanation for
this given in some German quarters was that the Army had outstripped its
big guns and ammunition supplies. That was as good as any other. No
explanation would clear the Prussian Military Command from the stigma
that it failed when there was that one remaining desperate chance of
success.
And having failed on the Marne and retreated to the Aisne the German
strategic plan lost all coherency. True, the war was lost so far as any
hope of winning European dominancy was concerned. But there was still as
a possible objective a peace which would secure Prussia something in
return for the territory which she had overrun. Such a peace had been
made difficult by the cold rage inspired by Prussian frightfulness. But
it was the only possible aim left and, from a military point of view, it
could only be pursued in one way, by a definite hammering at some vital
point to secure a decisive result, with a defensive stand in other
quarters. A defensive campaign in the East with a determined offensive
in the West, or a defensive on the West with a resolute offensive on the
East.
The Prussian vacillated between the two; his effort was always
shuttlecocking East to West, West to East, getting a decisive result
nowhere. Like a baited bull in the arena Prussia was constantly making
sensational rushes here and there, gratified often by the sight of
fleeing foes, but never breaking out of the arena of doom, and always
losing blood.
"The first three months of the war," he concluded dogmatically, "were
decisive. They do not redound to the military glory of Prussia. During
those three months the disciplined and trained devotion of the German
troops worked wonders in the battle line. But indecision at Headquarters
prevented the proper concentration of their efforts. Prussia had failed
to conquer Europe unprepared. She was afterwards face to face with the
task of conquering Europe prepared; and her indecision increased. She
was always looking for success in a new quarter and never finding it.
Recklessness and vacillation and impatience are not sound military
qualities, but they mark the whole military history of Germany since
November, 1914. Recklessness of ultimate consequences was shown in such
matters as the bringing of poison gas into use. Vacillation was shown by
the effort which was organised to take the French Channel ports at all
costs, and, failing, was diverted to the Eastern Front, and back again
to this Front, and then again to the Balkan Front, and back to this
Front and then to the Italian Front and finally back to this Front.
Impatience was shown in the general failure to push any effort to its
logical conclusion, and in details, such as the haste with which poison
gas was put into use on a small and ineffectual scale instead of being
kept in reserve for a great and possibly decisive effort."
"Take it year by year," this officer concluded, "it has been always the
same. Germany has added always to the area of destruction. She has never
got nearer to victory. It will be the same with this Push. If that motor
lorry has to carry away the maps from Montreuil it may be another ten
years before we beat the Germans, but we will beat them."
"But if France gives in?"
"France won't give in. Look at her now, ready to smash up all Pas de
Calais--to blow up every harbour and canal and road. That does not look
like giving in. Even if she were forced to it we could go back to our
island and carry on the fight from there."
Then we talked of lighter things.
Going out from dinner my friend reverted to the war position.
"Anyhow that lorry is not going to take the maps. I bet you a cigar to
nothing."
He was right. Going up to the map room on the Intelligence side we heard
that our troops were holding in front of Amiens. We had actually passed
the lowest point of our fortunes, and within a week the motor lorry had
gone.
I asked one of the drivers detailed to it, who either did not know or
wisely professed not to know what he had been kept in waiting for, what
he thought about it all. He replied with that sound philosophy of the
British soldier:
"It was a splendid 'mike,' Sir."
"Mike," it need hardly be explained, is a trade term in the Army for a
soft job.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE UNITY OF COMMAND.
Was it necessary?--Was a French Generalissimo inevitable?--Our share in
the guiding of the last phase of the campaign--Points on which the
British had their way.
The "unity of command" achieved in the Spring of 1918 caused hardly a
ripple of comment at G.H.Q. Some days after it had happened we learned
that Lord Milner (then Secretary of State for War) had been over, and
that, with the approval of Lord Haig, Field Marshal Foch had become
Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies.
I suppose that in their secret hearts many officers felt a little sad
that the honour of the united command had not fallen to a British
General. But there was no question as to the wisdom of the choice nor as
to the wisdom of the step itself. It was one of the early misfortunes of
the campaign that the British Government in 1914 had insisted very
strongly on keeping our Army as an absolutely independent unit in
France. The reasons, one may presume, were political rather than
strategical; and that there was still some remnant of the old prejudice
against "continental entanglements." I do not suppose that if the issue
had been left to the soldiers themselves there would have been any doubt
but that the small auxiliary British Force would have "reported to" the
main French Army and acted under its direction. That would have been the
natural military course. But the position became more difficult as the
importance of the British Army grew. At the time that the united Command
was achieved the British Army was in fighting force an equal unit to the
French.
Two questions are often raised in connection with this decision of 1918:
Was it necessary? Was it inevitable that the united command should go to
Marshal Foch? Both questions may be answered with "yes;" though in each
case the "yes" needs to be qualified with some explanation.
[Illustration: AT THE CHIEF'S CHATEAU]
It is, for instance, hardly correct to say that the decision to unite
the command "won the war;" though it is probably correct that it
hastened the date of victory. Before it was achieved there was good
co-operation, though not perfect co-operation, between the Allied
Forces. After it was achieved there was maintained a certain
independence of outlook and of policy on the part of the British Command
which was a great factor in the speedy consummation of victory. If
that independence had not been maintained, the operations of 1918 would,
almost certainly, not have been so gloriously decisive. This aspect of
the final campaign has never been discussed to my knowledge, yet a
knowledge of it is important if the events of 1918 are to be viewed in
their proper perspective.
I suppose the average "man in the street" takes the view that early in
1918, the British Army, which had been blundering along up till then,
was put under French Command and straightway the war was won. But it was
not at all like that. The British Army command, whilst giving the most
loyal support to the French Generalissimo and bowing to his decisions
when they were finally made, read it as its duty still to keep a share
in the conduct of the campaign; and in many most important conclusions
it upheld its own view as against the French view. The final result in
some matters showed that the British view was the right view, and that
if it had not been taken the victorious advance would not have been
possible.
In an earlier chapter I have given the facts about the forage ration. It
was not exactly a matter of the first importance, some may say. But if
the French view had been accepted and the British and American horse
ration had come down to the French level our horse transport would not
have been able to carry on as wonderfully as it did from August to
November, 1918. As things were, it had nothing to spare during the last
week, as our pursuing troops can tell. The French with their logical
minds argued that if their horses could do with a certain ration, ours
could. In this case the apparently logical conclusion was not the sound
one; for it left out of consideration some factors--as to whether we did
not use our horses more, and as to whether our men could get, or would
try to get, the same work out of ill-fed horses. In this matter it was
well for the Allied cause that the British had their way.
In another matter logic threatened to lead to a step which might have
proved disastrous. The French saw, as the logical corollary of the
united command, a union, a pooling of all the supply and transport
departments. Not only should the Armies fight under one strategical
direction but they should share and share alike all their resources. A
decision to this effect was actually come to, the Americans agreeing
with the French view. It was logical without a shadow of doubt. But
British common-sense recognised that if this radical reorganisation were
attempted in 1918 it would be 1920 before the Alliance would have been
ready for a great Push. The British Army--let it be confessed with
appropriate candour and shamefacedness--was much more exigent in its
demands than the French. It needed, or thought it needed, more food,
more clothing, more comforts, more ammunition, more transport. It had
evolved for itself during the campaign a system of "housekeeping" which
was over-liberal, perhaps, as compared with the French, but which was
mainly a result of the generosity of the Home people, and was so deeply
rooted in our Army organisation that to have torn it up in 1918 would
have caused all kinds of trouble.
In June, 1918, the "Executive Inter-Allied Committee on Supply" was
formed by an agreement between the French and the American governments,
to which the British government at first (apparently) assented. It
was to take over control of all Supply, Storage, and Transport, and
to have executive functions, _i.e._, its decisions would be binding
on all the Armies. The British Command at once saw that this was
impracticable--that it was impossible in the very midst of the
preparations for the Great Push to throw into a common pool so much
of the actual equipment of the Army. The Allied Command was very
stubborn in supporting its plan. But in time British common-sense
proved stronger than abstract logic, and in July all was made happy
by a decision that the functions of the Board were to _advise_ on
matters of Supply and Storage and methods of utilising material, as far
as practicable, for the common benefit of the Allies. The Board, in
short, was to have its scope in assisting to maintain the excellent
understanding which already existed between the Armies of the Allies in
regard to Supplies and Services.
The position was not at all that the British Army wanted to wallow in
luxury whilst its Allies went short, for it was always willing to help
in every possible way; but that its command knew that the essentially
national system of "housekeeping" which had been set up, could not be
thrown down at an hour's notice without grave danger.
The same sort of problem was always cropping up on a smaller scale in
areas where French troops were fighting with the British. The French had
at first a logical aspiration for an identity of supply systems. Our
view was that when British and French troops were operating together, it
was not possible to serve both from a common stock, nor by a common
railway service. Ammunition and Supplies differed in almost every
respect, and the systems of Supply could not be identical. Except in
regard to a few items, one Army could not supply the other
satisfactorily. Therefore, each Army should have its own depôts,
railheads, and--for the sorting of supplies--its own regulating
stations, which would receive from Base full trains loaded with
particular items of supply and send out to Divisions full trains loaded
with the necessary assortments of different items. Something could be
done in the way of pooling bulk stores, such as forage, coal, and
petrol; but for most things there must be different channels of supply.
British policy was that a British Force in a French area should provide
completely for its own maintenance, and organise its supply lines and
depôts accordingly. Ultimately it was recognised on both sides that this
was the only possible policy, and that the trouble of providing separate
regulating stations, separate railheads, and depôts must be faced. Any
half-way policy was seen to be fraught with too many possibilities of
dangerous failures.
To cite yet one more instance of the British policy proving the sounder:
In July, 1918, there were very strong indications that the German power
of offensive had passed its zenith and that the enemy might be forced
shortly to a great withdrawal. There was set on foot in the British Army
at the earliest opportunity an examination of the measures of Transport
and Supply which would become necessary if the Germans were forced to
withdraw their line. In 1916-1917 the enemy had been able to avoid, to a
great extent, the consequences of his defeats on the Somme and the Ancre
by retiring his line; a promptly effective pursuit was hindered by lack
of the necessary material on our part. A foreseeing preparation would
enable a better harvest of victory to be reaped if the position of
1916-1917 were reproduced in 1918. We wanted to be sure of being able to
follow up with about 2,000 tons of supplies per day per mile of front to
carry our troops over the Hindenburg Line.
There was found to be a divergence of view as to the best means of
following up. The French were inclined to put their faith chiefly in
light railways. The British idea was that light railways could be
overdone; that there was not a full appreciation of the modification in
the rôle of the light railway consequent on the change from trench to
moving warfare; that there was a tendency for light railways to attempt
to duplicate the work of broad-gauge railways; and a hint of a tendency
to look upon light railways as a substitute for, instead of a
reinforcement of, roads in the forward area.
The British "pursuit policy," to put it briefly, was to concentrate all
available labour on pushing forward with the broad-gauge railways and
the roads forward from them, trusting to motor transport and to horse
transport to pick up the burden from broad-gauge railhead. This was
maintained to be a superior policy to concentrating on light railways,
which could not allow so much freedom in lines of advance.
The British view prevailed in our sector, and in the Great Pursuit it
proved to be sound. The Germans were followed up on our sector of the
Front in really fine fashion. In the Somme sector of the Front between
August 8th and September 8th our broad-gauge railheads were pushed
forward an average of 30 miles. To these new railheads, all kinds of
traffic could go direct from the Base to meet there our Motor Transport
(and, of course, light railways; these were not neglected but given
secondary importance).
It was at first the French idea to "sandwich" the various Divisions of
the two Armies, to have a British Division or Corps side by side with a
French wherever possible. This again would have been a beautifully
logical illustration of the complete identity and fraternity of the two
armies, but it was not business. It multiplied difficulties of
administration, and it was finally abandoned, much to the advantage of
the common cause.
These matters I cite not with the idea of deprecating the French General
Staff--there were presumably as many instances in which their view was
right and ours was wrong--but to show that it is not fair to our G.H.Q.
to assume, as many do assume, that the British High Command had little
or nothing to do with the planning of the great victory. Marshal Foch is
prompt to resent that view when it is obtruded. He would, without a
doubt, agree that the British were most loyal in service, and also very
independent and stubborn (and often prevailing) in council. Probably
looking back upon the great victory which was won under his _bâton_ he
is profoundly grateful that the British were so forthright in helping to
keep the Allied operations on the best track.
The other question, asked at the beginning of this chapter, needs to be
explained. Was it inevitable that Marshal Foch should be chosen as
Generalissimo? It is quite certain that no other choice was possible in
view of all the circumstances. There is no need to come to the question
of who was the more renowned soldier, or to argue that if Lord Haig had
been given the same chance he would probably have achieved the same
result. Personally I think that the British Army in 1918 was in respect
of Generalship as in other respects equal to any in the Field. But that
was not the issue. We were fighting on French soil and had to demand
great sacrifices from the French civilian population, which a French
Generalissimo could best get. It was quite certain that the British Army
would fight with exactly the same enthusiasm under a French
Generalissimo; it was not possible to be so certain that the French Army
would under a British Generalissimo.
There was no contested election for the post. Lord Haig as well as
General Pershing supported Marshal Foch's claims. It was the work and
not the glory of the work which was the first consideration.
[Illustration: "SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE"]
CHAPTER XX.
THE COMING OF VICTORY.
The June Position--German attempts to pinch out our lines of
supplies--The attacks on hospitals--The glorious last 14 weeks--G.H.Q.'s
share.
By June, 1918, it was fairly evident that the German attack to drive the
British to the sea had exhausted itself. The enemy had attempted to push
through along the Somme line, separating the British and the French
Armies. Foiled in that by the stubborn defence in front of Amiens, he
tried a push towards the Channel ports, which really gave more anxiety
at G.H.Q. than the earlier move, for there we were working on such a
very narrow margin of safety that every yard lost was a grave peril.
The final effort of the enemy was to pinch us out of territory which he
could not push us out of, and this effort, though it led to no great
battles, was a very serious menace. During the month of June there was
not a day's respite from the pertinacious efforts of the enemy to
strangle our arteries of supply. Having arrived, at some places, within
range of our front lateral railway line, the enemy sought by continuous
bombardments to stop or at least hamper traffic, at the same time
constantly attacking with aircraft our rear lateral railway line at its
most sensitive points, the Somme and the Canche crossings. The ports of
entry and the supply depôts were also repeatedly attacked.
Inconvenience--serious at times--and loss followed from these attacks,
but there was never an actual stoppage of essential traffic. Provision
had been made to prevent any blows that the enemy was able to deliver
being really effective Alternative avoiding lines took up promptly the
task of broken channels of traffic, and strenuous work in repair and
good emergency organisation prevented congestion ever reaching the stage
of paralysis. At one time during this month it was necessary to stop for
a few days all but absolutely essential traffic from North to South.
That was the limit of the enemy's success, though he was aided in some
degree by an influenza epidemic (which sadly reduced the supply of
labour for railway and dock work).
One line of German tactics at this time was rather "over the edge" as
Tommy put it. That was to attack the Base hospitals by aircraft. One at
Etaples was set on fire and destroyed. There is, I admit, some room for
a shadow of a doubt as to whether the German deliberately attacked the
hospitals or only accidentally. That shadow of a doubt must be granted,
because it was a fact that several of our hospitals were near to large
railway junctions and camps, though always clearly marked and separated
from other military installations. I am not prepared to question the
good faith of those who give the Germans the benefit of the doubt,
though I cannot agree with them. The attacks on the hospitals came in
June, just when the Germans concentrated their strategy on trying to
cripple our means of supply. They inflicted grave embarrassment on our
resources, for, at a time when material was very short and lines of
transport fearfully congested, we had to construct new hospitals and
move patients and staffs. A note made in July on the point reads:
"Good progress is being made with the transfer to other areas of
hospitals which were rendered necessary by enemy aircraft attacks.
Though there is very little doubt possible that the enemy does not
intend to respect hospitals, wherever they may be sited, in his bombing
raids, the precaution is being taken of choosing new hospital sites well
away from any point of military importance. No hospital will be
established near military camps, important railway junctions, or
bridges."
If it was by a series of accidents that the Germans succeeded in hitting
a number of hospitals in June, 1918, they were singularly fruitful
accidents for him. The difference, from a "results" point of view, in
bombing a camp and a hospital is this: if you bomb a camp you kill a few
men but the camp does not move; if you bomb a hospital you kill a few
patients, nurses, and doctors, and you force the hospital to move, if it
can move, to an apparently safer place.
* * * * *
In June there was cause for anxiety in the whole supply position. Seeing
that the existence of the armies depended on maintaining to the full the
huge rate of supply which modern war demands, and that the enemy was
obviously trying immediately behind our lines the policy (which was
exactly the same as the policy of his submarine campaign) of pinching
out lines of supply, it was judicious to try to extend the margin of
safety. One way of effecting this which was explored was to extend
"Lines of Communication" to England, and to keep in England at places
handy for shipment to France one half the reserve stores of the Army. In
most items the Army worked on a month's reserve margin. The storing of
this month's reserve in the comparatively narrow strip of France which
we held, subject to constant bombing, was becoming a matter of extreme
difficulty. The retreat of the Germans began, however, before any
definite steps in the direction of setting up reserve stores on the
coast of England were taken.
There was no idea that the enemy was going to collapse so suddenly.
G.H.Q. expected to drive him back to the Hindenburg line in 1918 and to
finish him off in 1919. In the middle of July, 1918, the matter was
before the General Staff with the discussion of plans founded on the
postulate that the Germans might withdraw to the Hindenburg line, and
that a prompt following up in full force was intended. An instruction to
the Director General of Transportation asked for facts as to new railway
material that would be needed in such a contingency. The problem of
effective pursuit, it was recognised, would be largely one of Supplies
and Transport. If our Army could be brought up to the new German line
promptly, and maintained there with all the means of vigorous attack,
all kinds of pleasant results might be hoped for. But nobody really was
so optimistic as to think that the enemy would throw in his hand before
the winter. But we prepared for the best as well as for the worst.
The task of getting ready to put Pas de Calais in ruins in case of a
German advance was pleasantly interrupted by the now more urgent task of
getting ready to follow up the enemy with horse, foot, artillery, and
with some scores of thousand of tons of supplies daily. The fruits of
this were reaped in August, when all agreed that the troops had been
well followed up. Cases of real hardships were very rare. Some admirably
prompt work was done in railway construction, road restoration, and
canal clearing. One great main road was opened to traffic two hours
after its capture. Traffic on the Albert line was restored to Corbie and
Heilly the day after capture. The water supply difficulty was great, and
in many cases water for both men and horses had to be sent up by motor
and pack transport. But on the territory won our old water bores were
found in most cases intact, and were promptly restored to usefulness by
the R.E. Baths and laundries followed in close contact with our
advancing troops, and with them in some cases harvesting machinery to
win from waste the crops.
But that, whilst preparing for all possibilities, we were not such
optimists as to believe in an Autumn victory, is shown by the fact that
arrangements were well in hand to secure suitable training areas for the
British troops during the Winter, 1918-1919. For the previous two years,
circumstances had not allowed the British Forces adequate opportunities
for re-training. But, with the character of the war changing radically,
it was thought necessary that they should have opportunities to carry
out extensive training programmes in offensive operations of quick
movement during the Winter. Adequate manoeuvre areas for each Army
close behind its Front were sought. It is a coincidence that just after
this matter was put in hand military experts on the enemy side were
comforting their newspapers with arguments that the new style of Tank
attack evolved by the British required very special training of the
infantry, and that it could not be expected that any large proportion of
the British Army had, or could have, the necessary training.
G.H.Q., when the critical history of the war comes to be written, will
surely win high praise for its 1918 work. It took a hard knock in the
early Spring and was faced simultaneously with the tasks of holding on,
of re-organising a shattered railway system, of training and equipping
reinforcements from America and from our own distant Fronts, of
preparing for the effective destruction of Pas de Calais, and of
organising new lines of supply in case a further retreat was inevitable.
From these tasks it had to switch off suddenly to prepare for a great
pursuit instead of a great retreat, and did so with such skill and care
as the result showed.
How wonderfully, too, the successive blows of the British Army were
timed and driven home! As Marshal Foch recognised, it needed supremely
good staff work on the part of the British to control that deadly
rhythm. Beginning on August 8th, 1918, in four days the British Army
cleared the enemy from the Amiens Front. That restored our old lateral
line Boulogne-Amiens-Paris and added enormously to our transport
strength. We could now hit towards the north, and from the 21st to 31st
August we fought the last and most happy battle of the Somme, driving
the enemy to the east of the river. His position then was attacked
concurrently from the north, and by September 3rd he was back on the
Hindenburg line, and our Army, flushed with victory and its supply lines
working admirably, simply could not be stopped. The bustled enemy did
his best to make a stand on the Hindenburg line, and shortened his front
so as to allow of a stronger holding there, leaving to us without a
battle all of Belgium that he had won in the Spring offensive. But that
gave us a new railway advantage, and on September 18th, 1918, the Battle
of Epéhy carried the advanced posts of the Hindenburg line.
Quickly the home thrust followed. Between September 27th and October
10th the German centre was shattered and the rest of the campaign on our
Front was merely a matter of "mopping up." From August 8th to November
11th the British Army took 188,700 prisoners and 2,840 guns. (The
French, American and Belgian armies combined took 196,800 prisoners and
3,775 guns during the same period). When the Armistice was signed on
November 11th, the British Army was still full of fight and it had still
the means for a further advance, though its horse transport was very
weary and the men were having a really hard time in regard to rations
and water. But it is safe to say that it was in better plight than any
of the other armies.
How different November, 1918, from November, 1914! In 1914 so far as the
British nation at large was concerned it was a time of desperate shifts
and expedients. The lame and the halt and the blind who had fallen out
of the Regular ranks in olden days had come back to train recruits for
the New Armies. A great new industry of munition-making was being
founded. It had to make its machines and its tools before it could make
guns and shell. So far as the Army in the Field was concerned it held on
against heavy odds and with the scantiest supply of shell to answer the
well-supplied German Artillery. Whilst the Germans could send a deluge
of shells over we could reply with a bare sprinkle. And we had our cooks
and batmen fighting in the trenches whilst the Germans were confidently
calculating that the plan of training a new British Army had been
irretrievably compromised by the heavy losses which the British Regular
Army had suffered, and that a descent on the English coast with a very
small force would be sufficient to occupy London and end the war.
There is a legend that the German military plan from the Battle of Mons
to the Battle of the Marne in 1914 was prejudiced by the "political"
consideration of a desire to crush the British Army out of existence;
that to the attack upon the British detachment were devoted forces and
energies out of proportion to its military importance. A part, though
not an essential part, of this legend is the story of the Kaiser's
reference to the "contemptible little army" of Britain. Perhaps the
truth or otherwise of this legend will be established when there is a
full disclosure of events from the German side. It is not unreasonable
in itself, for the presence of the Kaiser with the German Army, and the
presence of his sons, without a doubt interfered often with the military
dispositions of his generals. In an earlier campaign (that of Napoleon
against Russia in 1812) a condition precedent to the ultimate Russian
success was that the Czar Alexander should leave his army to its
commanders, because he could not act as General-in-Chief himself, and
whilst he was with the Army no one else could. The German Kaiser's
emotional hatred of the British might well have led to an unbalanced
effort against the British Force.
In 1918 it was not the vanguard of a "contemptible little Army" that
heard the "cease fire" at Mons. It was an Army 64 Divisions strong, and
in all the fighting from August 8th, 1918, to November 11th, 1918,
those Divisions had been winning great battles from superior numbers of
German Divisions. At the Battle of Amiens we had 16 Divisions to the
German's 20 Divisions; at the Battle of Bapaume our 23 Divisions faced
35 German Divisions; at the decisive Battle of Cambrai-St. Quentin our
38 Divisions, with two American Divisions, drove 45 German Divisions out
of the Hindenburg line.
November 11th, 1918, saw the culmination of a great military
achievement. Of the glory of this achievement the chief share must go to
the British soldier, whose cheerful and imperturbable courage and
individual intelligence made him a perfect instrument of warfare; but a
large share remains for the guiding brain of British generalship in the
Field, with its centre at G.H.Q.
THE END.
Printed by WHITEHEAD BROS., WOLVERHAMPTON.
APPENDIX.
M. Henri Potez, in a farewell article in _Le Journal de Montreuil_ (30th
March, 1919), paid the following eloquent tribute to G.H.Q.:--
"We know indeed that quite a host of painters, coming from beyond
the Channel, have sung the praises of our familiar surroundings, of
our clear and happy countryside, of our changing light. Montreuil,
little by little, was becoming a kind of English Barbizon.
"Then the War broke out. The presence of the General Headquarters
of our Allies made of Montreuil, so to speak, the brain of the
British Army. What with telegraphic and telephonic lines, and
wireless telegraphy installations, a whole collection of nervous
threads radiated from Montreuil, carrying incessantly news and
orders. For some months we have been one of the mysterious centres
of the great epic. And the silhouette of the Supreme Chief has
often been marked on our vast horizons. Our heroes have appreciated
the loyalty and the bravery of our Allies on the fields of battle.
Side by side the two nations have withstood the most terrible
trials in defence of the same ideal. The two great liberal peoples
of the West have been the martyrs of Right and of Civilization. At
the time of the heavy offensives in Artois, we have seen the
splendid troops, who, having set out full of animation and
enthusiasm, returned to their camps reduced to mere handfuls of
men. These are the memories that can never be forgotten.
"Behind the front, the civilian populations have, on many
occasions, praised the affability of our friends, their courtesy
and their liberality. War has its exigencies; but it must be
recognised that they have shown the best of goodwill to mitigate
them. Their kindness on several occasions towards the old people
and the children, who had flocked here before the tempest of war,
has often been manifested.
"Let us not forget, either, in our farewell compliments, and our
wishes for a safe return, those of our Allies who have been
represented here by the Missions--Americans, Italians, and
Belgians. It is more than desirable, it is necessary, that the
great union of the West should outlast the war. It is necessary
that the differences and divergencies which may be brought about by
the settlement of this crisis should not be allowed to embitter or
envenom; but that they should be treated, governed, and regulated
with moderation, kindness, and a reciprocal generosity. In that
lies the future of humanity.
"'You live at Montreuil,' a University man who was employed as an
Officer Interpreter at Lille, recently remarked to me; 'the English
speak of it as if it were a kind of magnificent country, a dream
city ... they like its peace, its originality, its memories.' Many
of those who have lived amongst us propose to pay us a return
visit. We shall receive them cordially. We also hope to see again,
in closed up ranks, the pacific Army of the olden days, that Army
which carried easels as its bucklers, and pencils and brushes as
its lances and halberds."
HENRI POTEZ.
[Illustration: MAP--VICTORY YEAR, THE SUCCESSIVE BRITISH FRONTS]
Philip Allan & Co., Publishers,
_To be Published shortly._
AN INVALUABLE REFERENCE BOOK.
A CONCISE CHRONICLE
OF EVENTS OF THE
GREAT WAR
BY
R. P. P. ROWE,
M.A. (Oxon), Captain, late of the Royal West Kent Regt., and of
the Military Intelligence Directorate.
This is a STANDARD WORK, which will find a place on every desk and every
shelf of reference books. The compiler has had access to official
records, both naval and military, and to sources not available to the
general public. A feature is the very complete INDEX, and the APPENDICES
contain the VERBATIM TEXTS of the most important documents of the War.
Large Post 8vo. (8-1/4 × 5-1/2), 12s. 6d. net.
Quality Court, Chancery Lane, W.C. 2.
Philip Allan & Co., Publishers,
A FINE NOVEL.
The Barber of Putney
BY
J. B. MORTON.
"A faithful image of certain enduring human characteristics, affection,
comradeship, simple endeavour.... Mr. Morton has written with a
refreshing simplicity."--_The Times._
"A direct tale, grim, humorous, shrewd by turns, instinct with right
feeling throughout ... art is also brought to it by Mr. Morton, whose
hand is almost unfailingly sure and sincere."--_The Morning Post._
"It is one of the best novels which has been written about the
war."--_The Globe._
"There is a simple directness of observation and description and a quiet
breath of feeling about this story ... that give it a distinction of its
own."--_The Westminster Gazette._
"I own that I began THE BARBER OF PUTNEY with much doubt and misgiving.
But before I had gone far I found myself held by a description ... as
good as anything of the kind I have ever seen. Curly, the 'old sweat,'
the Mons man, is an excellent portrait. Tim's adventure with the German
sniper, whom he bayonets, is admirably described.... The retreat is
given in a very vivid and credible way; and the scenes out of the line
and in billets are equally good.... Mr. Morton has written an excellent
and readable book."--_Land and Water._
"A fine piece of work."--_The Birmingham Post_.
Quality Court, Chancery Lane, W.C. 2.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
Apparent printer's errors have been retained, unless stated below.
Punctuation, capitalization and accents have largely been made
consistent.
Page 18, "Montrueil" changed to "Montreuil" for consistency. (In later
years of Anglo-French enmity Montreuil was Montreuil-sur-mer only in
name)
Page 75, "gun" changed to "guns". (The 18-pounder field guns would shoot
100,000 rounds on a normal day, and on a heavy day would use 200,000
rounds.)
Page 83, "cilicifuge" changed to "cimicifuge". (they are on the track of
the perfect cimicifuge which will keep lice off the body)
Page 205 "humourous" changed to "humorous" (annuals of a humorous kind)
Page 218 "suzerainity" changed to "suzerainty" (of admitting a German
suzerainty)
Page 240 "Barrés" changed to "Barès" ( Colonel Barès, Chief of the)
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