Chapter II: Part 2

The motor stops. This is a Headquarters, and a staff officer comes out to greet us--a boy in looks, but a D.S.O. all the same! His small car precedes us as a guide, and we keep up with him as best we may. These are mining villages we are passing through, and on the horizon are some of those pyramidal slag-heaps--the Fosses--which have seen some of the fiercest fighting of the war. But we leave the villages behind, and are soon climbing into a wooden upland. Suddenly, a halt. A notice-board forbids the use of a stretch of road before us "from sun-rise to sunset." Evidently it is under German observation. We try to find another, parallel. But here, too, the same notice confronts us. We dash along it, however, and my pulses run a little quicker, as I realise, from the maps we carry, how near we are to the enemy lines which lie hidden in the haze, eastward; and from my own eyes, how exposed is the hillside. But we are safely through, and a little further we come to a wood--a charming wood, to all seeming, of small trees, which in a week or two will be full of spring leaf and flower. But we are no sooner in it, jolting up its main track, than we understand the grimness of what it holds. Spring and flowers have not much to say to it! For this wood and its neighbourhood--Ablain St. Nazaire, Carency, Neuville St. Vaast--have seen war at its cruellest; thousands of brave lives have been yielded here; some of the dead are still lying unburied in its furthest thickets, and men will go softly through it in the years to come. "Stranger, go and tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie here, obedient to their will:"--the immortal words are in my ears. But how many are the sacred spots in this land for which they speak!

We leave the motor and walk on through the wood to the bare upland beyond. The wood is still a wood of death, actual or potential. Our own batteries are all about us; so too are the remains of French batteries, from the days when the French still held this portion of the line. We watch the gunners among the trees and presently pass an encampment of their huts. Beyond, a high and grassy plateau--fringes of wood on either hand. But we must not go to the edge on our right so as to look down into the valley below. Through the thin leafless trees, however, we see plainly the ridges that stretch eastward, one behind the other, "suffused in sunny air." There are the towers of Mont St. Eloy--ours; the Bertonval Wood--ours; and the famous Vimy Ridge, blue in the middle distance, of which half is ours and half German. We are very near the line. Notre Dame de Lorette is not very far away, though too far for us to reach the actual spot, the famous bluff, round which the battle raged in 1915. And now the guns begin!--the first we have heard since we arrived. From our left--as it seemed--some distance away, came the short sharp reports of the trench mortars, but presently, as we walked on, guns just behind us and below us, began to boom over our heads, and we heard again the long-drawn scream or swish of the shells, rushing on their deadly path to search out the back of the enemy's lines in the haze yonder, and flinging confusion on his lines of communication, his supplies and reserves. He does not reply. He has indeed been strangely meek of late. The reason here cannot be that he is slipping away from our attack, as is the case farther south. The Vimy Ridge is firmly held; it is indeed the pivot of the retreat. Perhaps to-day he is economising. But, of course, at any moment he might reply. After a certain amount of hammering he _must_ reply! And there are some quite fresh shell-holes along our path, some of them not many hours old. Altogether, it is with relief that as the firing grows hotter we turn back and pick up the motor in the wood again.

And yet one is loath to go! Never again shall I stand in such a scene--never again behold those haunted ridges, and this wood of death with the guns that hide in it! To have shared ever so little in such a bit of human experience is for a woman a thing of awe, if one has time to think of it. Not even groups of artillery men, chatting or completing their morning's toilet, amid the thin trees, can dull that sense in me. _They_ are only "strafing" Fritz or making ready to "strafe" him; they have had an excellent midday meal in the huts yonder, and they whistle and sing as they go about their work, disappearing sometimes into mysterious regions out of sight. That is all there is in it for them. They are "doing their job," like the airmen, and if a German shell finds them in the wood, why, the German will have done _his_ job, and they will bear no grudge. It is simple as that--for them. But to the onlooker, they are all figures in a great design--woven into the terrible tapestry of war, and charged with a meaning that we of this actual generation shall never more than dimly see or understand.

Again we rush along the exposed road and back into the mining region, taking a westward turn. A stately chateau, and near it a smaller house, where a General greets us. Lunch is over, for we are late, but it is hospitably brought back for us, and the General and I plunge into talk of the retreat, of what it means for the Germans, and what it will mean for us. After luncheon, we go into the next room to look at the General's big maps which show clearly how the salients run, the smaller and the larger, from which the Germans are falling back, followed closely by the troops of General Gough. News of the condition of the enemy's abandoned lines is coming in fast. "Let no one make any mistake. They have gone because they _must_--because of the power of our artillery, which never stops hammering them, whether on the line or behind the line, which interferes with all their communications and supplies, and makes life intolerable. At the same time, the retreat is being skilfully done, and will of course delay us. That was why they did it. We shall have to push up roads, railways, supplies; the bringing up of the heavy guns will take time, but less time than they think! Our men are in the pink of condition!"

On which again follows very high praise of the quality of the men now coming out under the Military Service Act. "Yet they are conscripts," says one of us, in some surprise, "and the rest were volunteers." "No doubt. But these are the men--many of them--who had to balance duties--who had wives and children to leave, and businesses which depended on them personally. Compulsion has cut the knot and eased their consciences. They'll make fine soldiers! But we want more--_more!_" And then follows talk on the wonderful developments of training--even since last year; and some amusing reminiscences of the early days of England's astounding effort, by which vast mobs of eager recruits without guns, uniforms, or teachers, have been turned into the magnificent armies now fighting in France.

The War Office has lately issued privately some extremely interesting notes on the growth and training of the New Armies, of which it is only now possible to make public use. From these it is clear that in the Great Experiment of the first two years of war all phases of intellect and capacity have played their part. The widely trained mind, taking large views as to the responsibility of the Army towards the nation delivered into its hands, so that not only should it be disciplined for war but made fitter for peace; and the practical inventive gifts of individuals who, in seeking to meet a special need, stumble on something universal, both forces have been constantly at work. Discipline and initiative have been the twin conquerors, and the ablest men in the Army, to use a homely phrase, have been out for both. Many a fresh, and valuable bit of training has been due to some individual officer struck with a new idea, and patiently working it out. The special "schools," which are now daily increasing the efficiency of the Army, if you ask how they arose, you will generally be able to trace them back to some eager young man starting a modest experiment in his spare time for the teaching of himself and some of his friends, and so developing it that the thing is finally recognised, enlarged, and made the parent of similar efforts elsewhere.

Let me describe one such "school"--to me a thrilling one, as I saw it on a clear March afternoon. A year ago no such thing existed. Now each of our Armies possesses one.

But this letter is already too long!

No. 3

_Easter Eve_, 1917.

DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT,--Since I finished my last letter to you, before the meeting of Congress, great days have come and gone.

_America is with us!_

At last, we English folk can say that to each other, without reserve or qualification, and into England's mood of ceaseless effort and anxiety there has come a sudden relaxation, a breath of something canning and sustaining. What your action may be--whether it will shorten the war, and how much, no one here yet knows. But when in some great strain a friend steps to your side, you don't begin with questions. He is there. Your cause, your effort, are his. Details will come. Discussion will come. But there is a breathing space first, in which feeling rests upon itself before it rushes out in action. Such a breathing space for England are these Easter days!

Meanwhile, the letters from the Front come in with their new note of joy. "You should see the American faces in the Army to-day!" writes one. "They bring a new light into this dismal spring." How many of them? Mayn't we now confess to ourselves and our Allies that there is already, the equivalent of an American division, fighting with the Allied Armies in France, who have used every honest device to get there? They have come in by every channel, and under every pretext--wavelets, forerunners of the tide. For now, you too have to improvise great armies, as we improvised ours in the first two years of war. And with you as with us, your unpreparedness stands as your warrant before history, that not from American minds and wills came the provocation to this war.

But your actual and realised co-operation sets me on lines of thought that distract me, for the moment, from the first plan of this letter. The special Musketry School with which I had meant to open it, must wait till its close. I find my mind full instead--in connection with the news from Washington--of those recently issued War Office pamphlets of which I spoke in my last letter; and I propose to run through their story. These pamphlets, issued not for publication but for the information of those concerned, are the first frank record of _our national experience_ in connection with the war; and for all your wonderful American resource and inventiveness, your American energy and wealth, you will certainly, as prudent men, make full use of our experience in the coming months.

Last year, for _England's Effort_, I tried vainly to collect some of these very facts and figures, which the War Office was still jealously--'and no doubt quite rightly--withholding. Now at last they are available, told by "authority," and one can hardly doubt that each of these passing days will give them--for America a double significance. Surpass the story, if you can; we shall bear you no grudge! But up till now, it remains a chapter unique in the history of war. Many Americans, as your original letter to me pointed out, had still, last year, practically no conception of what we were doing and had done. The majority of our own people, indeed, were in much the same case. While the great story was still in the making, while the foundations were still being laid, it was impossible to correct all the annoying underestimates, all the ignorant or careless judgments, of people who took a point for the whole. The men at the heart of things could only set their teeth, keep silence and give no information that could help the enemy. The battle of the Somme, last July, was the first real testing of their work. The Hindenburg retreat, the successes in Mesopotamia, the marvellous spectacle of the Armies in France--and before this letter could be sent to Press, the glorious news from the Arras front!--are the present fruits of it.

Like you, we had, at the outbreak of war, some 500,000 men, all told, of whom not half were fully trained. None of us British folk will ever forget the Rally of the First Hundred Thousand! On the 8th of August, four days after the Declaration of War, Lord Kitchener asked for them. He got them in a fortnight. But the stream rushed on--in the fifth week of the war alone 250,000 men enlisted; 30,000 recruits--the yearly number enlisted before the war--joined in one day. Within six or seven weeks the half-million available at the beginning of the war had been _more than doubled._

Then came a pause. The War Office, snowed under, not knowing where to turn for clothes, boots, huts, rifles, guns, ammunition, tried to check the stream by raising the recruits' standards. A mistake!--but soon recognised. In another month, under the influence of the victory on the Marne, and while the Germans were preparing the attacks on the British Line so miraculously beaten off in the first battle of Ypres, the momentary check had been lost in a fresh outburst of national energy. You will remember how the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee came into being, that first autumn?--how the Prime Minister took the lead, and the two great political parties of the country agreed to bring all their organisation, central or local, to bear on the supreme question of getting men for the Army. Tory and Radical toured the country together. The hottest opponents stood on the same platform. _L'union sacrée_--to use the French phrase, so vivid and so true, by which our great Ally has charmed her own discords to rest in defence of the country--became a reality here too, in spite of strikes, in spite of Ireland.

By July 1915--the end of the first year of war--more than 2,000,000 men had voluntarily enlisted. But the military chiefs knew well that it was but a half-way house. They knew, too, that it was not enough to get men and rush them out to the trenches as soon as any kind of training could be given them. The available men must be sorted out. Some, indeed, must be brought back from the fighting line for work as vital as the fighting itself.

_So Registration came_--the first real step towards organising the nation. 150,000 voluntary workers helped to register all men and women in the country, from eighteen to sixty-five, and on the results Lord Derby built his group system, which _almost_ enabled us to do without compulsion. Between October and December 1915, another two million and a quarter men had "attested"--that is, had pledged themselves to come up for training when called on.

But, as every observer of this new England knows, we have here less than half the story. From a nation not invaded, protected, on the contrary, by its sea ramparts from the personal cruelties and ravages of war, to gather in between four and five million voluntary recruits was a great achievement. But to turn these recruits at the shortest possible notice, under the hammer-blows of a war, in which our enemies had every initial advantage, into armies equipped and trained according to modern standards, might well have seemed to those who undertook it an impossible task. And the task had to be accomplished, the riddle solved, before, in the face of the enemy, the incredible difficulties of it could possibly be admitted. The creators of the new armies worked, as far as they could, behind a screen. But now the screen is down, and we are allowed to see their difficulties in their true perspective--as they existed during the first months of the war.

In the first place--accommodation! At the opening of war we had barrack-room for 176,000 men. What to do with these capped, bare-headed, or straw-hatted multitudes who poured in at Lord Kitchener's call! They were temporarily housed--somehow--under every kind of shelter. But military huts for half a million men were immediately planned--then for nearly a million.

Timber--labour--lighting--water--drainage--roads--everything, had to be provided, and was provided. Billeting filled up the gaps, and large camps were built by private enterprise to be taken in time by the Government. Of course mistakes were made. Of course there were some dishonest contractors and some incompetent officials. But the breath, the winnowing blast of the national need was behind it all. By the end of the first year of war, the "problem of quartering the troops in the chief training centres had been solved."

In the next place, there were no clothes. A dozen manufacturers of khaki cloth existed before the war. They had to be pushed up as quickly as possible to 200. Which of us in the country districts does not remember the blue emergency suits, of which a co-operative society was able by a lucky stroke to provide 400,000 for the new recruits?--or the other motley coverings of the hosts that drilled in our fields and marched about our lanes? The War Office Notes, under my hand, speak of these months as the "tatterdemalion stage." For what clothes and boots there were must go to the men at the Front, and the men at home had just to take their chance.

Well! It took a year and five months--breathless months of strain and stress--while Germany was hammering East and West on the long-drawn lines of the Allies. But by then, January 1916, the Army was not only clothed, housed, and very largely armed, but we were manufacturing for our Allies.

As to the arms and equipment, look back at these facts. When the Expeditionary Force had taken its rifles abroad in August 1914, 150,000 rifles were left in the country, and many of them required to be resighted. The few Service rifles in each battalion were handed round "as the Three Fates handed round their one eye, in the story of Perseus"; old rifles, and inferior rifles "technically known as D.P.," were eagerly made use of. But after seven months' hard training with nothing better than these makeshifts, "men were apt to get depressed."

It was just the same with the Artillery. At the outbreak of war we had guns for eight divisions--say 140,000 men. And there was no plant wherewith to make and keep up more than that supply. Yet guns had to be sent as fast as they could be made to France, Egypt, Gallipoli. How were the gunners at home to be trained?

It was done, so to speak, with blood and tears. For seven months it was impossible for the gunner in training even to see, much less to work or fire the gun to which he was being trained. Zealous officers provided dummy wooden guns for their men. All kinds of devices were tried. And even when the guns themselves arrived, they came often without the indispensable accessories--range-finders, directors, and the like.

It was a time of hideous anxiety for both Government and War Office. For the military history of 1915 was largely a history of shortage of guns and ammunition--whether on the Western or Eastern fronts. All the same, by the end of 1915 the thing was in hand. The shells from the new factories were arriving in ever-increasing volume; and the guns were following.

In a chapter of _England's Effort_ I have described the amazing development of some of the great armament works in order to meet this cry for guns, as I saw it in February 1916. The second stage of the war had then begun. The first was over, and we were steadily overtaking our colossal task. The Somme proved it abundantly. But the expansion _still_ goes on; and what the nation owes to the directing brains and ceaseless energy of these nominally private but really national firms has never been sufficiently recognised. On my writing-desk is a letter received, not many days ago, from a world-famous firm whose works I saw last year: "Since your visit here in the early part of last year, there have been very large additions to the works." Buildings to accommodate new aeroplane and armament construction of different kinds are mentioned, and the letter continues: "We have also put up another gun-shop, 565 feet long, and 163 feet wide--in three extensions--of which the third is nearing completion. These additions are all to increase the output of guns. The value of that output is now 60 per cent, greater than it was in 1915. In the last twelve months, the output of shells has been one and a half times more than it was in the previous year." No wonder that the humane director who writes speaks with keen sympathy of the "long-continued strain" upon masters and men. But he adds--"When we all feel it, we think of our soldiers and sailors, doing their duty--unto death."

And then--to repeat--if the _difficulties of equipment_ were huge, they were almost as nothing to the _difficulties of training_. The facts as the War Office has now revealed them (the latest of these most illuminating brochures is dated April 2nd, 1917) are almost incredible. It will be an interesting time when our War Office and yours come to compare notes!--"when Peace has calmed the world." For you are now facing the same grim task--how to find the shortest cuts to the making of an Army--which confronted us in 1914.

In the first place, what military trainers there were in the country had to be sent abroad with the first Expeditionary Force. Adjutants, N.C.O.'s, all the experienced pilots in the Flying Corps, nearly all the qualified instructors in physical training, the vast majority of all the seasoned men in every branch of the Service--down, as I have said, to the Army cooks--departed overseas. At the very last moment an officer or two were shed from every battalion of the Expeditionary Force to train those left behind. Even so, there was "hardly even a nucleus of experts left." And yet--officers for 500,000 men had to be found--_within a month_--from August 4th, 1914.

How was it done? The War Office answer makes fascinating reading. The small number of regular officers left behind--200 officers of the Indian Army--retired officers, "dug-outs"--all honour to them!--wounded officers from the Front; all were utilised. But the chief sources of supply, as we all know, were the Officers' Training Corps at the Universities and Public Schools which we owe to the divination, the patience, the hard work of Lord Haldane. _Twenty thousand potential officers were supplied_ by the O.T.C's. What should we have done without them?

But even so, there was no time to train them in the practical business of war--and such a war! Yet _their_ business was to train recruits, while they themselves were untrained. At first, those who were granted "temporary commissions" were given a month's training. Then even that became impossible. During the latter months of 1914 "there was practically no special training given to infantry subalterns, with temporary commissions." With 1915, the system of a month's training was revived--pitifully little, yet the best that could be done. But during the first five months of the war most of the infantry subalterns of the new armies "had to train themselves as best they could in the intervals of training their men."

One's pen falters over the words. Before the inward eye rises the phantom host of these boy-officers who sprang to England's aid in the first year of the war, and whose graves lie scattered in an endless series along the western front and on the heights of Gallipoli. Without counting the cost for a moment, they came to the call of the Great Mother, from near and far. "They trained themselves, while they were training their men." Not for them the plenty of guns and shells that now at least lessens the hideous sacrifice that war demands; not for them the many protective devices and safeguards that the war itself has developed. Their young bodies--their precious lives--paid the price. And in the Mother-heart of England they lie--gathered and secure--for ever.

* * * * *

But let me go a little further with the new War Office facts.

The year 1915 saw great and continuous advance. During that year, an _average number of over a million troops_ were being trained in the United Kingdom, apart from the armies abroad. The First, Second, and Third Armies naturally came off much better than the Fourth and Fifth, who were yet being recruited all the time. What equipment, clothes and arms there were the first three armies got; the rest had to wait. But all the same, the units of these later armies were doing the best they could for themselves all the time; nobody stood still. And gradually--surely--order was evolved out of the original chaos. The Army Orders of the past had dropped out of sight with the beginning of the war. Everything had to be planned anew. The one governing factor was the "necessity of getting men to the front at the earliest possible moment." Six months' courses were laid down for all arms. It was very rare, however, that any course could be strictly carried out, and after the first three armies, the training of the rest seemed, for a time, to be all beginnings!--with the final stage farther and farther away. And always the same difficulty of guns, rifles, huts, and the rest.

But, like its own tanks, the War Office went steadily on, negotiating one obstacle after another. Special courses for special subjects began to be set up. Soon artillery officers had no longer to join their batteries _at once_ on appointment; R.E. officers could be given a seven weeks' training at Chatham; little enough, "for a man supposed to know the use and repairs of telephones and telegraphs, or the way to build or destroy a bridge, or how to meet the countless other needs with which a sapper is called upon to deal!" Increasing attention was paid to staff training and staff courses. And insufficient as it all was, for months, the general results of this haphazard training, when the men actually got into the field--all short-comings and disappointments admitted--were nothing short of wonderful. Had the Germans forgotten that we are and always have been a fighting people? That fact, at any rate, was brought home to them by the unbroken spirit of the troops who held the line in France and Flanders in 1915 against all attempts to break through; and at Neuve Chapelle, or Loos, or a hundred other minor engagements, only wanted numbers and ammunition--above all ammunition!--to win them the full victory they had rightly earned.

Of this whole earlier stage, the _junior subaltern_ was the leading figure. It was he--let me insist upon it anew--whose spirit made the new armies. If the tender figure of the "_Lady of the Lamp_" has become for many of us the chief symbol of the Crimean struggle, when Britain comes to embody in sculpture or in painting that which has touched her most deeply in this war, she will choose--surely--the figure of a boy of nineteen, laughing, eager, undaunted, as quick to die as to live, carrying in his young hands the "Luck" of England.

* * * * *

But with the end of 1915, the first stage, the elementary stage, of the new Armies came to an end. When I stood, in March 1916, on the Scherpenberg hill, looking out over the Salient, new conditions reigned. The Officer Cadet Corps had been formed; a lively and continuous intercourse between the realities of the front and the training at home had been set up; special schools in all subjects of military interest had been founded, often, as we have seen, by the zeal of individual officers, to be then gradually incorporated in the Army system. Men insufficiently trained in the early months had been given the opportunity--which they eagerly took--of beginning at the beginning again, correcting mistakes and incorporating all the latest knowledge. Even a lieutenant-colonel, before commanding a battalion, could go to school once more; and even for officers and men "in rest," there were, and are, endless opportunities of seeing and learning, which few wish to forgo.

And that brings me to what is now shaping itself--the final result. The year just passed, indeed--from March to March--has practically rounded our task--though the "learning" of the Army is never over!--and has seen the transformation--whether temporary or permanent, who yet can tell?--of the England of 1914, with its zealous mobs of untrained and "tatterdemalion" recruits, into a great military power,[This letter was finished just as the news of the Easter Monday Battle of Arras was coming in.] disposing of armies in no whit inferior to those of Germany, and bringing to bear upon the science of war--now that Germany has forced us to it--the best intelligence, and the best _character_, of the nation. The most insolent of the German military newspapers are already bitterly confessing it.

* * * * *

My summary--short and imperfect as it is--of this first detailed account of its work which the War Office has allowed to be made public--has carried me far afield.

The motor has been waiting long at the door of the hospitable headquarters which have entertained us! Let me return to it, to the great spectacle of the present--after this retrospect of the Past.

Again the crowded roads--the young and vigorous troops--the manifold sights illustrating branch after branch of the Army. I recall a draft, tired with marching, clambering with joy into some empty lorries, and sitting there peacefully content, with legs dangling and the ever blessed cigarette for company, then an aeroplane station--then a football field, with a violent game going on--a Casualty Clearing Station, almost a large hospital--another football match!--a battery of eighteen-pounders on the march, and beyond an old French market town crowded with lorries and men. In the midst of it D---- suddenly draws my attention to a succession of great nozzles passing us, with their teams and limbers. I have stood beside the forging and tempering of their brothers in the gun-shops of the north, have watched the testing and callipering of their shining throats. They are 6-inch naval guns on their way to the line--like everything else, part of the storm to come.

And in and out, among the lorries and the guns, stream the French folk, women, children, old men, alert, industrious, full of hope, with friendly looks for their Allies. Then the town passes, and we are out again in the open country, leaving the mining village behind. We are not very far at this point from that portion of the line which I saw last year under General X's guidance. But everything looks very quiet and rural, and when we emerged on the high ground of the school we had come to see, I might have imagined myself on a Surrey or Hertfordshire common. The officer in charge, a "mighty hunter" in civil life, showed us his work with a quiet but most contagious enthusiasm. The problem that he, and his colleagues engaged in similar work in other sections of the front, had to solve, was--how to beat the Germans at their own game of "sniping," which cost us so many lives in the first year and a half of war; in other words, how to train a certain number of men to an art of rifle-shooting, combining the instincts and devices of a "Pathfinder" with the subtleties of modern optical and mechanical science. "Don't think of this as meant primarily to kill," says the Chief of the School, as he walks beside me--"it is meant primarily to _protect_. We lost our best men--young and promising officers in particular--by the score before we learnt the tricks of the German 'sniper' and how to meet them." German "sniping," as our guide explains, is by no means all tricks. For the most part, it means just first-rate shooting, combined with the trained instinct and _flair_ of the sportsman. Is there anything that England--and Scotland--should provide more abundantly? Still, there are tricks, and our men have learnt them.

Of the many surprises of the school I may not now speak. Above all, it is a school of _observation_. Nothing escapes the eye or the ear. Every point, for instance, connected with our two unfamiliar figures will have been elaborately noted by those men on the edge of the hill; the officer in charge will presently get a careful report on us.

"We teach our men the old great game of war--wit against wit--courage against courage--life against life. We try many men here, and reject a good few. But the men who have gone through our training here are valuable, both for attack and defence--above all, let me repeat it, they are valuable for _protection_."

And what is meant by this, I have since learnt in greater detail. Before these schools were started, _every day_ saw a heavy toll--especially of officers' lives--taken by German snipers. Compare with this one of the latest records: that out of fifteen battalions there were only nine men killed by snipers _in three months._

We leave the hill, half sliding down the frozen watercourse that leads to it, and are in the motor again, bound for an Army Headquarters.

No. 4

_April 14th_, 1917.

DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT,--As the news comes flashing in, these April days, and all the world holds its breath to hear the latest messages from Arras and the Vimy ridge, it is natural that in the memory of a woman who, six weeks ago, was a spectator--before the curtain rose--of the actual scene of such events, every incident and figure of that past experience, as she looks back upon it, should gain a peculiar and shining intensity.

The battle of the Vimy Ridge [_April 8th_] is clearly going to be the second (the first was the German retreat on the Somme) of those "decisive events" determining this year the upshot of the war, to which the Commander-in-Chief, with so strong and just a confidence, directed the eyes of this country some three months ago. When I was in the neighbourhood of the great battlefield--one may say it now!--the whole countryside was one vast preparation. The signs of the coming attack were everywhere--troops, guns, ammunition, food dumps, hospitals, air stations--every actor and every property in the vast and tragic play were on the spot, ready for the moment and the word.

Yet, except in the Headquarters and Staff Councils of the Army nobody knew when the moment and the word would come, and nobody spoke of them. The most careful and exact organisation for the great movement was going on. No visitor would hear anything of it. Only the nameless stir in the air, the faces of officers at Headquarters, the general alacrity, the endless _work_ everywhere, prophesied the great things ahead. Perpetual, highly organised, scientific drudgery is three parts of war, it seems, as men now wage it. The Army, as I saw it, was at work--desperately at work!--but "dreaming on things to come."

One delightful hour of that March day stands out for me in particular. The strong, attractive presence of an Army Commander, whose name will be for ever linked with that of the battle of the Vimy ridge, surrounded by a group of distinguished officers; a long table, and a too brief stay; conversation that carries for me the thrill of the _actual thing_, close by, though it may not differ very much from wartalk at home: these are the chief impressions that remain. The General beside me, with that look in his kind eyes which seems to tell of nights shortened by hard work, says a few quietly confident things about the general situation, and then we discuss a problem which one of the party--not a soldier--starts.

Is it true or untrue that long habituation to the seeing or inflicting of pain and death, that the mere sights and sounds of the trenches tend with time to brutalise men, and will make them callous when they return to civil life? Do men grow hard and violent in this furnace after a while, and will the national character suffer thereby in the future? The General denies it strongly. "I see no signs of it. The kindness of the men to each other, to the wounded, whether British or German, to the French civilians, especially the women and children, is as marked as it ever was. It is astonishing the good behaviour of the men in these French towns; it is the rarest thing in the world to get a complaint."

I ask for some particulars of the way in which the British Army "runs" the French towns and villages in our zone. How is it done? "It is all summed up in three words," says an officer present, "M. le Maire!" What we should have done without the local functionaries assigned by the French system to every village and small town it is hard to say. They are generally excellent people; they have the confidence of their fellow townsmen, and know everything about them. Our authorities on taking over a town or village do all the preliminaries through M. le Maire, and all goes well.

The part played, indeed, by these local chiefs of the civil population throughout France during the war has been an honourable and arduous--in many cases a tragic--one. The murder, under the forms of a court-martial, of the Maire of Senlis and his five fellow hostages stands out among the innumerable German cruelties as one of peculiar horror. Everywhere in the occupied departments the Maire has been the surety for his fellows, and the Germans have handled them often as a cruel boy torments some bird or beast he has captured, for the pleasure of showing his power over it.

From the wife of the Maire of an important town in Lorraine I heard the story of how her husband had been carried off as a hostage for three weeks, while the Germans were in occupation. Meanwhile German officers were billeted in her charming old house. "They used to say to me every day with great politeness that they _hoped_ my husband would not be shot. 'But why should he be shot, monsieur? He will do nothing to deserve it.' On which they would shrug their shoulders and say, 'Madame, c'est la guerre!' evidently wishing to see me terrified. But I never gave them that pleasure."

A long drive home, through the dark and silent country. Yet everywhere one feels the presence of the Army. We draw up to look at a sign-post at some cross roads by the light of one of the motor lamps. Instantly a couple of Tommies emerge from the darkness and give help. In passing through a village a gate suddenly opens and a group of horses comes out, led by two men in khaki; or from a Y.M.C.A. hut laughter and song float out into the night. And soon in these farms and cottages everybody will be asleep under the guard of the British Forces, while twenty miles away, in the darkness, the guns we saw in the morning are endlessly harassing and scourging the enemy lines, preparing for the day when the thoughts now maturing in the minds of the Army leaders will leap in flame to light.

* * * * *

To-day we are off for the Somme. I looked out anxiously with the dawn, and saw streaks of white mist lying over the village and the sun struggling through. But as we start on the road to Amiens, the mist gains the upper hand, and we begin to be afraid that we shall not get any of those wide views from the west of Albert over the Somme country which are possible in clear weather. Again the high upland, and this time _three_ tanks on the road, but motionless, alack! the nozzles of their machine guns just visible on their great sides. Then a main road, if it can be called a road since the thaw has been at work upon it. Every mile or two, as our chauffeur explains, the pavé "is all burst up" from below, and we rock and lunge through holes and ruts that only an Army motor can stand. But German prisoners are thick on the worst bits, repairing as hard as they can. Was it perhaps on some of these men that certain of the recent letters that are always coming into G.H.Q. have been found? I will quote a few of those which have not yet seen the light.

Here are a batch of letters written in January of this year from Hamburg and its neighbourhood:

"It is indeed a miserable existence. How will it all end? There is absolutely nothing to be got here. Honey costs _6s. 6d_. a pound, goose fat _18s_. a pound. Lovely prices, aren't they? One cannot do much by way of heating, as there is no coal. We can just freeze and starve at home. Everybody is ill. All the infirmaries are overflowing. Small-pox has broken out. You are being shot at the front, and at home we are gradually perishing."

" ... On the Kaiser's birthday, military bands played everywhere. When one passes and listens to this tomfoolery, and sees the emaciated and overworked men in war-time, swaying to the sounds of music, and enjoying it, one's very gall rises. Why music? Of course, if times were different, one could enjoy music. But to-day! It should be the aim of the higher authorities to put an end to this murder. In every sound of music the dead cry for revenge. I can assure you that it is very surprising that there has not been a single outbreak here, but it neither can nor will last much longer. How can a human being subsist on 1/4 lb. of potatoes a day? I should very much like the Emperor to try and live for a week on the fare we get. He would then say it is impossible.... I heard something this week quite unexpectedly, which although I had guessed it before, yet has depressed me still more. However, we will hope for the best."

"You write to say that you are worse off than a beast of burden.... I couldn't send you any cakes, as we had no more flour.... We have abundant bread tickets. From Thursday to Saturday I can still buy five loaves.... My health is bad; not my asthma, no, but my whole body is collapsing. We are all slowly perishing, and this is what it is all coming to."

" ... The outlook here is also sad. One cannot get a bucket of coal. The stores and dealers have none. The schools are closing, as there is no coal. Soon everybody will be in the same plight. Neither coal nor vegetables can be bought. Holland is sending us nothing more, and we have none. We get 3-1/2 lb. of potatoes per person. In the next few days we shall only have swedes to eat, which must be dried."

* * * * *

A letter written from Hamburg in February, and others from Coblenz are tragic reading:

" ... We shall soon have nothing more to eat. We earn no money, absolutely none; it is sad but true. Many people are dying here from inanition or under-feeding."

Or, take these from Neugersdorf, in Saxony:

"We cannot send you any butter, for we have none to eat ourselves. For three weeks we have not been able to get any potatoes. So we only have turnips to eat, and now there are no more to be had. We do not know what we can get for dinner this week, and if we settle to get our food at the Public Food-Kitchen we shall have to stand two hours for it."

"Here is February once more--one month nearer to peace. Otherwise all is the same. Turnips! Turnips! Very few potatoes, only a little bread, and no thought of butter or meat; on the other hand, any quantity of hunger. I understand your case is not much better on the Somme."

Or this from a man of the Ersatz Battalion, 19th F.A.R., Dresden:

"Since January 16th I have been called up and put into the Foot Artillery at Dresden. On the 16th we were first taken to the Quartermaster's Stores, where 2,000 of us had to stand waiting in the rain from 2.30 to 6.30.... On the 23rd I was transferred to the tennis ground. We are more than 100 men in one room. Nearly all of us have frozen limbs at present. The food, too, is bad; sometimes it cannot possibly be eaten. Our training also is very quick, for we are to go _into the field in six weeks_."

Or these from Itzehoe and Hanover:

"Could you get me some silk? It costs 8s. a metre here.... To-day, the 24th, all the shops were stormed for bread, and 1,000 loaves were stolen from the bakery. There were several other thousand in stock. In some shops the windows were smashed. In the grocers' shops the butter barrels were rolled into the street. There were soldiers in civilian dress. The Mayor wanted to hang them. There are no potatoes this week."

"To-day, the 27th, the bakers' shops in the ---- Road were stormed.... This afternoon the butchers' shops are to be stormed."

"If only peace would come soon! We have been standing to for an alarm these last days, as the people here are storming all the bakers' shops. It is a semi-revolution. It cannot last much longer."

To such a pass have the Kaiser and the Junker party brought their countrymen! Here, no doubt, are some of the recipients of such letters among the peaceful working groups in shabby green-grey, scattered along the roads of France. As we pass, the German N.C.O. often looks up to salute the officer who is with us, and the general aspect of the men--at any rate of the younger men--is cheerfully phlegmatic. At least they are safe from the British guns, and at least they have enough to eat. As to this, let me quote, by way of contrast, a few passages from letters written by prisoners in a British camp to their people at home. One might feel a quick pleasure in the creature-comfort they express but for the burning memory of our own prisoners, and the way in which thousands of them have been cruelly ill-treated, tormented even, in Germany--worst of all, perhaps, by German women.

The extracts are taken from letters written mostly in December and January last:

(_a_) " ... Dear wife, don't fret about me, because the English treat us very well. Only our own officers (N.C.O.'s) treat us even worse than they do at home in barracks; but that we're accustomed to...."

(_b_) " ... I'm now a prisoner in English hands, and I'm quite comfortable and content with my lot, for most of my comrades are dead. The English treat us well, and everything that is said to the contrary is not true. Our food is good. There are no meatless days, but we haven't any cigars...."

(_c_) Written from hospital, near Manchester: " ... I've been a prisoner since October, 1916. I'm extremely comfortable here.... Considering the times, I really couldn't wish you all anything better than to be here too!"

(_d_) " ... I am afraid I'm not in a position to send you very detailed letters about my life at present, but I can tell you that I am quite all right and comfortable, and that I wish every English prisoner were the same. Our new Commandant is very humane--strict, but just. You can tell everybody who thinks differently that I shall always be glad to prove that he is wrong...."

(_e_) " ... I suppose you are all thinking that we are having a very bad time here as prisoners. It's true we have to do without a good many things, but that after all one must get accustomed to. The English are really good people, which I never would have believed before I was taken prisoner. They try all they can to make our lot easier for us, and you know there are a great many of us now. So don't be distressed for us...."

X is passed, a large and prosperous town, with mills in a hollow. We climb the hill beyond it, and are off on a long and gradual descent to Amiens. This Picard country presents everywhere the same general features of rolling downland, thriving villages, old churches, comfortable country houses, straight roads, and well-kept woods. The battlefields of the Somme were once a continuation of it! But on this March day the uplands are wind-swept and desolate; and chilly white mists curl about them, with occasional bursts of pale sun.

Out of the mist there emerges suddenly an anti-aircraft section; then a great Army Service dump; and presently we catch sight of a row of hangars and the following notice, "Beware of aeroplanes ascending and descending across roads." For a time the possibility of charging into a biplane gives zest to our progress, as we fly along the road which cuts the aerodrome; but, alack! there are none visible and we begin to drop towards Amiens.

Then, outside the town, sentinels stop us, French and British; our passes are examined; and, under their friendly looks--betraying a little surprise!--we drive on into the old streets. I was in Amiens two years before the war, between trains, that I might refresh a somewhat faded memory of the cathedral. But not such a crowded, such a busy Amiens as this! The streets are so full that we have to turn out of the main street, directed by a French military policeman, and find our way by a détour to the cathedral.

As we pass through Amiens arrangements are going on for the "taking over" of another large section of the French line, south of Albert; as far, it is rumoured, as Roye and Lagny. At last, with our new armies, we can relieve more of the French divisions, who have borne so gallantly and for so many months the burden of their long line. It is true that the bulk of the German forces are massed against the British lines, and that in some parts of the centre and the east, owing to the nature of the ground, they are but thinly strung along the French front, which accounts partly for the disproportion in the number of kilometres covered by each Ally. But, also, we had to make our Army; the French, God be thanked, had theirs ready, and gloriously have they stood the brunt, as the defenders of civilisation, till we could take our full share.

And now we, who began with 45 kilometres of the battle-line, have gradually become responsible for 185, so that "at last," says a French friend to me in Paris, "our men can have a rest, some of them for the first time! And, by Heaven, they've earned it!"

Yet, in this "taking over" there are many feelings concerned. For the French _poilu_ and our Tommy it is mostly the occasion for as much fraternisation as their fragmentary knowledge of each other's speech allows; the Frenchman is proud to show his line, the Britisher is proud to take it over; there are laughter and eager good will; on the whole, it is a red-letter day. But sometimes there strikes in a note "too deep for tears." Here is a fragment from an account of a "taking over," written by an eye-witness:

Trains of a prodigious length are crawling up a French railway. One follows so closely upon another that the rear truck of the first is rarely out of sight of the engine-driver of the second. These trains are full of British soldiers. Most of them are going to the front for the first time. They are seated everywhere, on the trucks, on the roof--legs dangling over the edge--inside, and even over the buffers. Presently they arrive at their goal. The men clamber out on to the siding, collect their equipment and are ready for a march up country. A few children run alongside them, shouting, "Anglais!" "Anglais!" And some of them take the soldiers' hands and walk on with them until they are tired.