With our army in Flanders

by Valentine Williams

The A.P.M. is the instrument of military law. His mission is to look after discipline. Multifarious and difficult are his duties. He must be drastic as Draco, tactful as Talleyrand, astute as Sherlock Holmes. He is the pass “wallah.” He is the authority who at all times and places has the indisputable right to demand your papers and to inquire all about you. If a private or two get drunk in a village, it is the A.P.M. who must find out where and how they get their liquor despite the stringent army prohibition, and place the offending estaminet out of bounds. The A.P.M. must know the civilians who are respectable citizens in our zone of operations and those who are not.

Frequently his duties bring him into collision with the fair sex. Since immemorial times the courtesan has proved an invaluable instrument of espionage, and the advent of ladies of the roving eye in the towns of our zone is but one of the hundreds of topics which engage the attention of the A.P.M.

Pity the A.P.M.! He must be rather truculent in manner in order to assert his authority, for it is his duty to scent the spy in everyone whose business in the war zone is not instantly apparent. But hear him when papers and passes have been produced in impeccable order: “You know I have to do this. It’s my job. You don’t mind my troubling you—what?” The presence of civilians in the zone of our army is a valuable shelter to spies, and one must therefore be grateful to the unremitting labours of the A.P.M.’s, however inconvenient their activity may be at times.

“During the march of the Allies to the Meuse,” writes Captain Maycock in his admirable treatise on Marlborough’s campaigns, “every possible provision had been made for the comfort of the men, while the discipline of the troops, and the fact that all supplies were scrupulously paid for, astonished the inhabitants of the countries through which they passed.”

This high standard, established by Cadogan, Marlborough’s famous Quartermaster-General, on the Danube and in Flanders, has been splendidly maintained—nay, surpassed—by his successors in this war. The supply services of the army have been above all praise. Whether the Q.M.G. was dealing with the four divisions of the original Expeditionary Force or with the great army into which that little body ultimately expanded, the supply service reached the same high level of efficiency. Whether in the summer heat of the retreat from Mons or in the icy chill of the winter in the trenches, the hardships of war have been consistently allayed for our troops by the abundance and regularity of their supplies.

The Quartermaster-General Department furnishes the army in the field with everything, including arms and ammunition, which are provided through the Ordnance Services, but are carried up to the front in the motor-lorries of the Mechanical Transport of the Army Service Corps, which is under the Q.M.G. Everything, from bully-beef and biscuits to fly-papers, from plum-and-apple jam to chloride of lime, is supplied by the Q.M.G.

“Daily Mail” phot.
Our troops and their daily bread. A scene at a base.

The Q.M.G. works in close co-operation with the Inspector-General of Communications (I.G.C.), who controls the Lines of Communication—familiarly known as L. of C.—supervises the unloading of supplies at the base and their transfer to trains bound for the railheads at the front, “railhead” being the railway station or siding allotted to the division as its collecting-point on the line. At the railhead the Q.M.G. steps in again and sees to the collection of the supplies by the motor-lorries attached to each division, which take the supplies to the refilling-points, where the horse-carts of the different battalions are waiting to carry them right into the firing-line.

The Q.M.G. has to look after the motor and horse transport of the army. Through his Director of Transport he has to find the army in motor-cars and motor-lorries, with spare parts and petrol and tyres and enormous garages, where the havoc wrought by the rough Flanders roads can be repaired by expert mechanics; in motor-cycles for the despatch-riders of the Signalling Corps; in carts for the horse-transport. Through his Director of Remounts he has to provide the army with its horses and mules.