My Second Year of the War | Page 4

Force had perished. Reservists had come
to take the vacant places. Officers and non-commissioned officers who
survived had to direct a fighting army in the field and to train a new
army at home. An offensive was out of the question. All that the force
in the trenches could do was to hold. When the world wondered why it
could not do more, those who knew the true state of affairs wondered
how it could do so much. With flesh and blood infantry held against
double its own numbers supported by guns firing five times the number
of British shells. The British could not confess their situation without
giving encouragement to the Germans to press harder such attacks as
those of the first and second battle of Ypres, which came perilously
near succeeding.
This little army would not admit the truth even in its own mind. With
that casualness by which the Englishman conceals his emotions the
surviving officers of battalions which had been battered for months in
the trenches would speak of being "top dog, now." While the world was
thinking that the New Army would soon arrive to their assistance, they
knew as only trained soldiers can know how long it takes to make an
army out of raw material. So persistent was their pose of winning that it
hypnotized them into conviction. As it had never occurred to them that
they could be beaten, so they were not.
If sometimes the logic of fact got the better of simulation, they would
speak of the handicap of fighting an enemy who could deliver blows
with the long reach of his guns to which they could not respond. But
this did not happen often. It was a part of the game for the German to

marshal more guns than they if he could. They accepted the situation
and fought on. They, too, looked forward to "the day," as the Germans
had before the war; and their day was the one when the New Army
should be ready to strike its first blow.
There was also a new leader in France, king of the British world there.
Sir William sent him the new battalions and the guns and the food for
men and guns and his business was to make them into an army. They
arrived thinking that they were already one, as they were against any
ordinary foe, though not yet in homogeneity of organization against a
foe that had prepared for war for forty years and on top of this had had
two years' experience in actual battle.
On a quiet byroad near headquarters town, where all the staff business
of General Headquarters was conducted, a wisp of a flag hung at the
entrance to the grounds of a small modern chateau. There seemed no
place in all France more isolated and tranquil, its size forbidding many
guests. It was such a house as some quiet, studious man might have
chosen to rest in during his summer holiday. The sound of the guns
never reached it; the rumble of army transport was unheard.
Should you go there to luncheon you would be received by a young
aide who, in army jargon, was known as a "crock"; that is, he had been
invalided as the result of wounds or exposure in the trenches and,
though unfit for active service, could still serve as aide to the
Commander-in-Chief. At the appointed minute of the hour, in keeping
with military punctuality, whether of generals or of curtains of fire, a
man with iron-gray hair, clear, kindly eyes, and an unmistakably strong
chin, came out of his office and welcomed the guests with simple
informality. He seemed to have left business entirely behind when he
left his desk. You knew him at once for the type of well-preserved
British officer who never neglects to keep himself physically fit. It
amounts to a talent with British officers to have gone through
campaigns in India and South Africa and yet always to appear as fresh
as if they had never known anything more strenuous than the leisurely
life of an English country gentleman.
I had always heard how hard Sir Douglas Haig worked, just as I had

heard how hard Sir William Robertson worked. Sir Douglas, too,
showed no signs of pressure, and naturally the masterful control of
surroundings without any seeming effort is a part of the equipment of
military leaders. The power of the modern general is not evident in any
of the old symbols.
It was really the army that chose Sir Douglas to be
Commander-in-Chief. Whenever the possibility of the retirement of Sir
John French was mentioned and you asked an officer who should take
his place, the answer was always either Robertson or Haig. In any
profession the members should be