At Ypres with Best-Dunkley | Page 5

1917.
"I got up at 7.15 this morning. Breakfast. Then down to the 'bull ring' in
full marching order. Gas all day. Fortunately we were under nice shady
trees most of the time. We had sandwiches down there between 12 and
1, and got back at 4.30, feeling very hot after the march. Then tea....

"Hamer, Bridgestock, and Allin have gone up the line this morning. I
am posted to the 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers (the battalion Norman
Kemp was in!). I shall not be going up the line for a few days, but by
the time your reply to this reaches me I shall be there...."
My diary of that same day, May 28, records: "To Paris Plage in the
evening." And my letter written home the following day proceeds as
follows:
"After writing home yesterday I walked down town, and took a car to
the seaside place opposite. The country through which the car went was
pretty, and the seaside place quite passable; all right in peace-time I
should think. Unfortunately the last car back leaves at 8.15, so I came
by it....
"To-day, Royal Oak Day, we have spent on the 'bull ring' again....
"I have seen David Morgan (who was in the same billet with me when
we were privates together in the 29th Royal Fusiliers at Oxford, in
January, 1916) this evening. I managed to find the C.R.E. offices where
he works. He saw me, and came out to me. I went inside. He is very
cosy there, in a nice new hut. He was working at a drawing. His hours
daily are from 9 in the morning until 8 in the evening; but, as I had
come, he managed to get a pass to go down town with me this evening.
We therefore had a walk. He looks very well with his stripe, and he
seems to be having a good time. He desires to be remembered to you
both. I left him at about 8. Then I had dinner at the Officers' Club, but
was not struck by it....
"It is now 'lights out,' so I had better stop."
"May 30th.
" ... We spent the day on the 'bull ring' as usual. It has been fine. We
have not, I am thankful to say, had any rain at all since I landed in
France on Saturday last.
"This evening I have spent parading the streets of the town. I have

become heartily 'fed up' with the dirty antediluvian place. Morgan
actually, after nine solid months of residence here, says that he likes it
and the people. I could not have imagined that there were many of the
latter whose acquaintance would be particularly charming; but he
speaks upon the authority of long experience!"
I also wrote down the following note at that time while I was still in
Étaples:
"One noticeable thing to-day (May 30) has been the number of men and
transport which have been passing through on the trains all day and
going north, obviously coming from one part of the Front and going
round this way, to avoid the observation of the Germans, to another.
We are massing troops round the great city where great battles have
been fought before--concentrating for a great offensive. So there will
very soon be a third battle of Ypres, and I expect I shall be present on
the occasion myself. It should be very exciting. In the two former
battles we were on the defensive; this time we shall be on the offensive.
And I must say--pessimistic as I am on all Western offensives--this
idea holds forth a faint ray of hope of success. I have always held that
there is only one way in which the war can be won in the West--by a
flanking offensive in the North. This is not entirely the type of flanking
movement I would myself recommend, but it is an attempt at the
idea--and that is something. It may prove a semi-fiasco like the awful
tragedies of Neuve Chapelle, Loos, the Somme, and Arras; but it might
possibly turn out a success. Then it would be simply a case of _veni,
vidi, vici_!"
That memorandum is particularly interesting in view of the events
which followed, and the story which this narrative will tell. I always
held very strong-views on the conduct of the war. I was not one of
those who looked upon this great bid for world power on the part, of
the German Empire as purely a campaign on the Western Front, all
other campaigns in other corners of the globe being mere "side shows."
I was always a firm and consistent supporter of the "East End" school
of strategy. I looked upon the war as a World War and, since the
decisive Battle of the Marne