Trench-mortars and bombs of various sorts put in an appearance and classes were held daily to accustom the men to the new types of trench weapons. A 3·7 affair of gas-pipe, throwing a 4½-pound projectile, was the most prevalent mortar. Prematures and accidents of all kinds accompanied its introduction, and more than one good man was killed before the troops learned the intricacies of the bombs.
General Foch was at Cassel with his Headquarters. Dinner in Cassel was always productive of a talk on instructive and entertaining subjects. The average French Staff officer was wonderfully "keen on his job."
The French system of espionage was by no means to be despised. The reports from their "agents" were astonishingly accurate.
That Staff work should be the subject of many an after-dinner chat was but natural. The French view of the difference between French and British Staff work, compiled from many a conversation with officers of all ranks, I understood to be generally as follows:—
British Staff work could not fairly be compared to French Staff work, because of the lack of opportunity accorded the British Army, before the War, to handle large bodies of troops. Furthermore, the English Army contained many officers who entered the Army as something in the nature of a pastime rather than a serious profession. Some of these officers even went through the Staff School, though lacking that devoted concentration on their profession as a life-work, which characterised their French prototypes. Very few officers entered the French Army and qualified for staff positions who did not look upon a military career in a very serious light. French Staff officers gained their steps by force of sheer merit and close application to their work.
Nothing else counted, they said. Not a big staff, but one that was efficient beyond all question, was the French aim.
The British soldier, I found, was in most instances frankly conceded to be the best war material in the field—friend or foe. That the British leaders often bungled was openly alleged, but by no means always proven in argument, at least, to my satisfaction.
A failure to arrange support, a badly planned attack, bad Staff work here and there, were quoted in more than one instance.
"It is the soldier who suffers," said one of the most brilliant Frenchmen with whom I met. "He suffers in silence. Perhaps he what you call 'grouses,' but he stands it. The French soldier would not do so in anything like the same spirit. The waste of men and the bad handling of them that once or twice I have seen on the British front, would ruin a French commander for ever."
Universally the French officers praised General Sir Douglas Haig. He had completely won their admiration at Ypres.