Motor-buses were bringing the 28th Division to the Ypres Salient as I passed on my homeward journey.
Rumours of an attack on the German line flew from lip to lip. That night I read from an eminent French military authority that "to attack, unless with a definite object in view, with a very reasonable chance of success, and with the surety that you can hold what you gain if the attack succeeds, is a crime."
In the second week in February, at a dinner in St. Omer, a member of the French Mission at British Headquarters told me that eighty-seven French general officers had been "relieved of their command" since the commencement of the war. These generals were "sent down" for incompetency, evidenced in various ways, to command the troops under them. The extremely small number of British generals who had been "replaced" stood out in very sharp contrast to this total, with which fact should be remembered the complete difference as to policy with reference to such replacements between the French and British War Office methods.
Early in February, the 1st Cavalry Division staff was blessed with the arrival of Major Desmond Fitzgerald (11th Hussars), who took Major Hambro's place as G.S.O. 2.
The total tally of British casualties was announced during the first week in the month as 104,000, having exceeded, in less than six months of warfare, the numerical strength of the original British Expeditionary Force.
A day "in front," with the engineers, mapping out new trenches and reserve positions, showed to how great an extent modern gun-fire had changed military theory.
Before the War, a trench line was sought in a position that commanded a good "field of fire," i.e., that had in front of it as much open ground as possible.
This war had taught that the most important item in the selection of a trench position was the extent to which the line could be hidden from the enemy gunners. The space commanded by the occupants of the trench and the nature of the terrain were secondary to the cardinal point of keeping the trenches well out of sight of enemy observers.
Thus engineers might, years ago, select a hilltop as a trench position, the line commanding the receding slope to the valley below. After the experience of the greatest of all wars, they would preferably place it fifty yards behind the summit. More than fifty yards of "field of fire" was desirable, but not absolutely necessary. A fifty-yard space could be so covered with wire entanglements as sufficiently to delay an attacking enemy. Deep, narrow trenches with traverses to restrict the area of damage from shells bursting in the actual trench, and to protect from enfilade fire, were demanded by the newer conditions, but great care had to be taken that they should not be constructed in ground of so soft a nature that howitzer fire could too easily cave in the trench sides.