We could not fail, while we were at Ablain, to compare the effect of the 1915 gunfire with that of 1916. This comparison can, indeed, be made wherever fighting had taken place before the Somme offensive.
In the sector of Ablain, Carency and Souchez our artillery had delivered a weight of shell, in May and June 1915, such as had never been known before. The enemy had been stunned by it. Yet, what a different effect was wrought by the artillery during the Somme offensive. At either Ablain, Carency or Souchez it is still possible to see that there is a village, and even to rebuild it in imagination. The skeletons are still standing.
But in Fricourt, Mametz, Thiepval and all the other villages which were under fire in 1916, not one stone remains upon another. In 1915 it was destruction; in 1916 annihilation. The advance made in the construction of artillery is written in the soil in unmistakable characters, and no one who is not an expert can conceive how the science of levelling things with the earth might be brought to any greater perfection. Our further advance along these lines must, one would say, be made downwards.
It is with deep regret that we leave these immense cities of the dead, where so many Frenchmen sleep under the sympathetic wardenship of our Allies.
[CHAPTER IV.]
A DINNER OF GENERALS.
This evening on our return from the lines we found the following invitation:
"Dear Sir,—The General in Command will be very happy if you can dine with him at eight o'clock."