It is splendid how our fellows keep rolling up to fight, for, believe me, the war is no joke out here. Very few people who have been out think it's all a death-or-glory sort of business. On the contrary, it is a steady and persistent strain, a strain under which the strongest nerves are apt to give way after a time—I am talking, of course, of the trenches. When the cavalry go into action as cavalry, they are bound to suffer fearfully, being so exposed, but there's no doubt that they will do their job, and put a still greater number of the Boches out of action. This is a war in which there is nothing picturesque or romantic. It takes all the cheerfulness of the British Tommy to overmaster the grinding strain of trench warfare, though as man is by nature a fighter, he presently begins to throw off the trammels of civilisation and live à la naturelle. The British soldier has done marvels in this war. Nothing but his irrepressible spirits and lion-hearted courage would have held up this great host of Boches armed with new and strange implements of war and with every weapon known to science.
September 18th, 1915.
In an interval of relaxation, our division gave a Horse Show to-day. To these cavalrymen, horses are as meat and drink, almost the one topic of their conversation, at once their delight and their business. A lot of notabilities from various places in France came up to see the Show. It was the most magnificent display of horseflesh I have ever seen. It was held in a large open field. The programme included competitions for officers' and troopers' horses (light and heavy), driving for the limbers of the regiment, work by machine-gun sections, races, jumping, turn-out of A.S.C. wagons, and what-not. A wonderful display was that of the officers' chargers, in which the long line of competitors rode, trotted and galloped past the General who was judging. Some of the men's horses were also very good, and really ran the officers' chargers close for merit. The first three prize-winners would be worth a clear £450 apiece. To describe the efficiency of the wagon-driving, the smartness of their turn-out, the quickness and neatness of all their manœuvres, is beyond me. There was no lance or sword play. The whole business had been arranged to see that everything was as efficient as possible, and to promote a spirit of healthy rivalry among the different regiments. It was an extraordinary spectacle, not fifteen miles from the firing-line, with the big guns booming in one's ears the whole time—very characteristic of the Englishman's love of sport and its value to the nation. This is one of the things that the Boches never can, or will be able to, understand. They cannot realise how these "mad English" can forget the War when in the middle of it, and when any minute their "sport" might be interrupted by a "Jack Johnson." I was with our Brigade Veterinary Officer, who, of course, is an equine expert. It was a treat to hear him telling off the points of the magnificent chargers passing in front of us, pawing the ground and snorting, full of dash and fire. To me the whole affair had a profound interest. I have never enjoyed myself more, and really its psychological significance was immense.
On the morning of 25th September, 1915, the 1st and 4th Corps of the British Army delivered an attack on the enemy line between La Bassée Canal on the north and a point opposite the village of Grenay on the south. There were subsidiary simultaneous attacks east of Ypres by the 5th Corps, and north of the La Bassée Canal by the 3rd and the Indian Corps. Our main attack was made in co-operation with the French offensive on our right. The British Cavalry Corps was posted in the neighbourhood of St. Pol and Bailleul-les-Pernes, in readiness to co-operate with the French Cavalry in pushing home any success which might be attained by the combined offensive.
September 23rd, 1915.
I am about to leave on an official mission, the nature of which I cannot disclose to you for the time being. My kit has had to be sent away, and I am only equipped with things I can carry about me or in my saddle-wallets on the horses. Revolver, haversack, official books, map-case and respirator are slung about my body. It is fine to be independent of trunks. Last night I bivouacked in a field, and one day I was quartered in a mining village which before the war must have been a busy place. It reminded me very much of the outskirts of Llanelly. I am feeling better in health and spirits than ever before.
An article by a Liberal M.P. that appeared recently in the Daily Chronicle annoyed me very much. Previously I had imagined the writer to be rather a sportsman and a game fighter; but his insulting references in this article to the "good fellows" in the trenches, who are "excellent in their time and place," etc., simply set my teeth on edge. I know full well that the type of thing that he calls "a voice from the trenches" is only an exploitation of sensational newspapers, as Tommy never by any chance in my experience of him talks of subjects like conscription. But the sheer cruelty of this M.P.'s patronising talk of the men who are dying by thousands to keep him and his kind safe at home absolutely surpasses everything. The suggestion that the man at the Front knows less of how to run wars than M.P.s who have, in all probability, never seen a drop of blood shed or a gun fired in anger in their lives, is, on the face of it, ludicrous. We have heard a lot about the Army not interfering in politics. Well and good; but let the politicians cease to meddle with military affairs, unless, of course, it is manifest that the most sacred civil rights of the people are being sacrificed to a caucus of officers, like those who tried to hold up the Home Rule Bill.
To-day a big detachment of German prisoners was brought into the village. They were well dressed and equipped, and in reasonably good spirits.