1. G.H.Q. was the link between the B.E.F. and the British Government. The War Cabinet sitting in London was the supreme authority. The Secretary of State for War was its spokesman and, with the War Office Staff, its adviser. The Commander-in-Chief was the Army's spokesman and, with his G.H.Q., the negotiator with the Secretary of State for War. In the final result the B.E.F. had to do what it was ordered to do by the Secretary of State, but the Commander-in-Chief was usually consulted beforehand, and had always the right of discussion and of remonstrance. The relations between the Home Government and the Army were recognised as the most important matter dealt with by G.H.Q., and War Office letters had a special priority. No one except the Commander-in-Chief communicated directly with the War Office.
2. G.H.Q. was the link between the British Army in the Field and the Allied armies—the French, American, Belgian and Portuguese. Relations between these were maintained through Military Missions, we keeping a Mission with the G.H.Q. of the Allied Army, they keeping Missions with our G.H.Q. There was, quite apart from big questions of operations, discussion of which was confined to the Chief of the General Staff and the heads of the foreign Missions, an immense amount of technical transport, supply and finance work between the Allies. There was hardly an officer of G.H.Q. who did not in some detail come into relations with the foreign Missions.
3. G.H.Q. had to decide the strategy of the campaign in its relation to the British sector. After the unity of Command there was a somewhat lessened responsibility in this matter, but the work was practically the same. The Commander-in-Chief, in consultation with his Chief of Staff, his Quartermaster-General and his Adjutant-General, decided when and with what forces we should attack, when adopt a defensive policy. To come to those decisions a close and constant study was necessary by the various branches of G.H.Q. of the state of the enemy's forces, our own numbers and morale, our possibilities of transport and supply.
4. G.H.Q. had to arrange the supply, from Home and from its own workshops and local civilian workshops, of all the wonderful equipment of the forces, from a Tank and a 15-inch howitzer to a tin of dubbin; all the ammunition and all the food supplies to man and beast. There came to the ports of France every month for the B.E.F. about 800,000 tons of stuff. The men to be fed totalled over 2,000,000 and the animals to be fed about 500,000. A month's supply of ammunition weighed about 260,000 tons.
5. G.H.Q. managed a transport system which used constantly about half a million horses and mules and about 20,000 motor lorries, running over 9,000,000 motor miles per month; which carried on its light railways about 544,000 tons a month and ran every day 250 trains on broad gauge lines.
6. G.H.Q. was constantly building new railways and new roads, and developing new harbour facilities. It ran big canal and sea services, forestry and agricultural services, repair shops, laundries, etc., on a gigantic scale.
7. G.H.Q managed the vast medical services for wounded and sick, the veterinary services, the laboratories for the defence of our men and animals against poison gas and for the gas counter-offensive. It was responsible for the organisation of the Chaplains' services, for educational work and the amusement of the men.
Such was the work of G.H.Q. It was carried on under these varying conditions:
1. Maintaining a stabilised position. This was comparatively easy. Wastage of men, horses and material could be calculated with some certainty and replaced by a routine process.
2. Preparing for a big attack. This made the greatest strain on Transport and Supply, and the necessary conditions of secrecy added complications and difficulties. In preparing an offensive the Traffic more than doubled per Division. The necessary making of new railways and new roads and the accumulation of defence material to fortify a new line were responsible for most of this. But the accumulation of a big head of ammunition was also a factor. On a quiet sector two Divisions could get along with about three trains daily. For the purposes of a big attack ten Divisions might be concentrated on that sector and those ten Divisions in the preparatory stage of the attack would need about 33 supply trains a day, and during the offensive about 27 trains a day. Put the problem into terms of civil railway administration. Tell the manager of the London to Brighton line that next week he must carry 15 times the normal traffic for a number of days and that it is extremely important that people observing his termini and his lines should not notice anything unusual.
3. Resisting a big attack. The most difficult element of this was its unexpectedness. The total provision needed for it was less than for an offensive. The amount of supplies necessary to go up by train per Division from Base would be 25 per cent. less than in the case of the preparation of a big attack. We always carried a good reserve stock of ammunition, food, and engineering stores close behind the line, and a further reserve of ammunition already loaded on trains at appropriate railway centres. In case of emergency, ammunition could start moving up in just the time necessary to hitch a locomotive on to a standing train. Experience of the German offensive in 1918 showed that we carried near the front line too great reserves, and we lost a good deal of food, stores and ammunition in consequence. That big attack indeed disclosed several chinks in our armour. It showed that in some cases during Trench War units had allowed themselves to become immobile. (To give one example, many Casualty Clearing Stations had burdened themselves with surgical stores and equipment which should be reserved for stationary hospitals. Thus burdened, they were tempted to evacuate too soon). There were weaknesses, too, in Ammunition Columns, and the railway system was not nearly elastic enough. But we pulled through, largely because the British officer and soldier has always a bit in reserve and never thinks so quickly or acts so bravely as when in a tight corner.
4. Carrying on a general offensive. This was the supreme test of the British Staff from August, 1918, to November, 1918. It called for an effort that put in the category of easy things all that had gone before. The effort was gloriously successful. The British Army succeeded where the German Army in 1914, under far more favourable circumstances, had failed.
I have given only the most important of the functions of G.H.Q. and a very inadequate idea of the conditions under which it had to carry on its tasks, yet for all this there were only 300 officers at Montreuil and 240 officers at the outlying directorates.
It did not leave much chance for idleness! At G.H.Q., in my time, in my branch, no officer who wished to stay was later than 9 a.m. at his desk; most of the eager men were at work before then. We left at 10.30 p.m. if possible, more often later. On Saturday and Sunday exactly the same hours were kept. "An hour for exercise" in the afternoon was supposed to be reserved, in addition to meal-hours; but it was not by any means always possible. During the worst of the German offensive in the spring of 1918 Staff officers toiled from 8.30 a.m. to midnight, with half-hour intervals for meals. I have seen a Staff officer faint at table from sheer pressure of work, and dozens of men, come fresh from regimental work, wilt away under the fierce pressure of work at G.H.Q.
The extreme character of the strain at G.H.Q. used to be recognised by a special allowance of leave. A short leave every three months was, for a long time, the rule. With pressure of work, that rule fell in abeyance, and a G.H.Q. Staff Officer was lucky to get a leave within six months. In the case of the big men at the head of the departments leave was something to be talked of, dreamt of, but never realised. Compared with conditions at G.H.Q. regimental work was care-free and pleasant.
G.H.Q. was organised in this fashion. At the head was the Commander-in-Chief and his personal staff consisting of an Assistant Military Secretary, a Private Secretary, a Medical Officer, an Officer in charge of escorts and five A.D.C.s. Attached to this personal staff were an American and a French Staff Officer. There was one officer of the Dominions on the Chief's personal staff, Captain Botha, a son of the late General Botha, Prime Minister of South Africa. With his personal staff the Commander-in-Chief was quartered at a château near Montreuil.
One rarely saw "the Chief." He seldom had occasion to come to the offices in the Ecole Militaire, and it was only the highest officers who had to go to confer with him. But his presence was always felt. There was no more loyal band of brothers than the Grand Staff of the British Army in 1918, and the humblest member at G.H.Q. expressed the spirit of the Commander-in-Chief, and, within his sphere, was trying to do exactly as the Commander-in-Chief would do. When "the Chief" did appear at Montreuil all felt they had the right to desert work for five minutes to go to a window to catch a glimpse of him as he passed from one side of the Ecole Militaire to the other, or stopped in the great courtyard to chat for a moment with one of his officers.
Under the Chief the staff was divided into branches. There was the "Military Secretary's Branch," a small branch under Major-General H. G. Ruggles-Brise, whose duties were to look after honours, promotions, etc. There was the General Staff Branch, under Lieut.-General the Hon. Sir H. A. Lawrence, divided into the Operations Section, under Major-General J. H. Davidson (having charge of the actual strategy and tactics in the campaign); the Staff Duties Section, under Major-General G. P. Dawnay; and the Intelligence Section, under Brigadier-General G. S. Clive (having charge of the collection of information as to the enemy's movements, dispositions, intentions, etc.). There was the Adjutant-General's Branch, under Lieutenant-General Sir G. H. Fowke (having charge of discipline). There was the Quartermaster-General's Branch, under Lieutenant-General Sir Travers Clarke (having charge of supply and transport). Finally there were certain officers with special duties attached to G.H.Q. but not directly under any of these branches, such as the Officer Commanding Royal Artillery, the Inspector of Machine Gun Units, the Engineer-in-Chief, the officers in charge of Mines and Searchlights, the Inspector of Training, the Chief Chaplains, the Provost Marshal, and the Deputy Judge Advocate-General.