The Army under Sir John French was assuming considerable proportions early in April. In addition to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th Divisions, the 27th and 28th, the Canadian Division and the Divisions of the Indian Corps, as well as the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Cavalry Divisions and the Indian Cavalry Division, were well seasoned. The North Midland, 2nd London and South Midland Territorial Divisions were "out," and fast gaining experience and a good reputation with it, while the Northumberland Territorial Division was on the way.
G.H.Q. information summaries in the early days of April said laconically, "Nothing to report on the British front," and were generally fairly correct.
On the 8th and 9th the roads leading from the Ypres district were filled with French troops moving southward. The veterans of the 9th Corps limped past, frost-bite having visited most of them during their long sojourn in the trenches of the Salient.
Lines of French guns ambled by, "75's," with their graceful light grey lines, were eminently business-like, their gunners clad in dark blue cape-overcoats that looked warm and comfortable.
The 1st Cavalry Division was given a new brigade, the 9th, which consisted of the 15th Hussars, 19th Lancers and the Warwickshire Territorial Battery.
Bumping over the bad roads at good speed meant frequent car trouble. I was fortunate to find Harold Smith, the Royal Automobile Club Engineer, one day at Boulogne, where he was superintending the installation of a first-class motor repair plant for the Red Cross Ambulances. Mieville, of the Red Cross, in whose hands were all matters pertaining to Red Cross motor vehicles, proved a good Samaritan. Between Mieville and Smith my decrepit car was given a new lease of life.
The Army Service Corps would have done well to have "co-opted" Smith and one or two more like him. His repair shop at Boulogne, when completed, was so far ahead of any repair park possessed by the Army in France that comparison made the Army shops look very bad indeed. Yet Smith's work was done in three weeks or less and a building of quite a temporary character utilised.
While I was in Boulogne an Army Service Corps captain came to Harold Smith and said: "I have been told to lay down a foundry, and unfortunately know nothing whatever about the bally thing. Do you happen to know anything about a foundry?"