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?"