"But the best of the British Staff work," said another French officer, "is that it is improving. The English are not afraid to admit they don't know, and are quick to absorb new ideas. Give them time."
I have quoted the more trenchant criticisms that came to my ears, for they fell from the lips of the keenest and most brilliant French Staff officers, invariably those who held the British Tommy in the highest possible esteem.
These officers were from the class of man one would choose to put in charge of a dry dock, a line of railway, a huge business or a gigantic manufactory. They impressed me as good "business men." More than a few British Staff officers I met, particularly in the Cavalry arm of the Service, were equally clever, and every whit as keen on their work, but no one who wished to be impartial could fail to note the inclusion now and then, on the Staff, of men to whom one would never dream of entrusting the management of a large commercial organisation or the conduct of an important factory plant.
The 3rd and 2nd Cavalry Divisions having each done ten days of trench occupation in the Ypres Salient, on February 23rd, the 1st Cavalry Division moved to Ypres to take its ten days of duty in the firing line.
The run to Ypres, viâ Steenvoorde and Poperinghe, was a trying one. The road surface was inconceivably damaged and very slippery. All manner of French and British transport and general traffic filled the highway.
The Rue de Menin in March, 1915, looking west over the Menin Bridge across the canal moat
face p. 54