[1] Appendix A.
[2] General Headquarters, 1914-1916, and its Critical Decisions—Gen. von Falkenhayn.
CHAPTER II
THE SOMME
THE BATTLE OF GINCHY; THE BATTLE OF FLERS-COURCELETTE; THE BATTLE OF MORVAL
The move to St. Riquier, in the neighbourhood of Abbeville, revealed to some of the officers that their men were not very fit for marching. This knowledge appears to come as a revelation to some people. Those on active service very soon discovered that a long period of trench duty, though it hardened the men to those particular conditions, made them unfit for any strenuous marching. It was probably never understood by people in England. They were, then, weary battalions that arrived at St. Riquier.
When it is said that a battalion or a division was “resting,” that word must not be taken in too literal a sense. One might define it with greater truth as being a change of location, sometimes a mere matter of a mile or so, at others perhaps fifty miles. There were, it is true, no trenches to man, no sentry groups by day and night, but there was always work to be done. And the work, very naturally, had always the one end in view—the defeat of the Germans.
The training was almost exclusively of an aggressive nature. Unless there was some special object in view, when trenches would be dug to represent our own and those occupied by the enemy, the optimistic
nature of the Higher Command always leaned to open warfare training. Companies wandered about, as they do in England, attacking villages, strong points, and woods, and indulged in vast schemes of pursuit after phantom armies called Red or North or South Armies. But this short period at St. Riquier gave the 56th Division a surprise in the matter of training.