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G. H. Q.
(MONTREUIL-SUR-MER).

G. H. Q.
(MONTREUIL-SUR-MER)

BY
"G. S. O."

WITH A MAP AND THIRTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS.

LONDON:
PHILIP ALLAN & CO.,
QUALITY COURT, CHANCERY LANE, W.C.
1920.

PRINTED BY
WHITEHEAD BROS., WOLVERHAMPTON.

TO
THE PEOPLE AT HOME
WHOSE UNBENDING RESOLUTION
AND UNGRUDGING GENEROSITY
UPHELD THE SOLDIERS' CONFIDENCE
THIS BOOK IS GRATEFULLY
DEDICATED BY THE
AUTHOR.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

FOREWORD.

That fantastic life at G.H.Q., so greatly detached from the normal—the life of the men whose words had power to send Armies into and out of action, to give this Division rest and surcease from the agony of the struggle, to assign to that Division the stress of a new effort; the men into whose hands the nation poured millions without stint and at whose call the whole world moved to spin or dig or forge—will it be of interest now to recall some of its memories, to attempt an intimate picture of its routine?

Fantastic the life was truly. One man of imagination, who had done his work in the line so well as to win a reputation for great courage and administrative ability, and had carried through with a quiet skill and a simple dutifulness the responsibilities of the "small family" of a regiment, found, when he was transferred to G.H.Q., that the sense of responsibility was too great for his temperament. He was not a very important cog of the machine. But the feeling that the motion which his hand started set going so great a series of actions got on his nerves to the extent that he could neither sleep nor eat with comfort, nor decide the simplest matter without torturing doubt as to whether it were right or wrong. He "moved on" within a few days.

Fortunately that sense of vision was rare. The average man was content to "carry on" with his task with what good judgment Heaven gave him, deciding as the established routine, or the common-sense shift of a new emergency, dictated.

But looking back, reflecting on all the woeful results that might have sprung from a careless blunder, from too great haste, from too deliberate hesitation, from over fear or over confidence, it is to be seen how fantastic, how abnormal was the life centred in that little walled town of Montreuil, the focus of a spider's web of wires, at one end of which were the soldiers in their trenches, at the other the workers of the world at their benches. Yet we ate, drank, slept, played a little and talked, very much as if we were workers in some commercial house, directing coffee from a plantation to a warehouse and then to a breakfast table, instead of dealing in blood and tears, drawing without stint on human life and human hope so that the idea of Right and Liberty might be saved in the world.

It is well that Imagination went to sleep, or was lacking. For so the work could be done and the war directed to its safe conclusion. But a record of the life we lived seems now, in retrospect, almost indecorous. It is as if we should not have munched food, talked trivialities, while before our eyes and under our hands was played out the greatest tragedy Man has known; as if it would have been more fitting if we had gone from uneasy couches, tight-lipped and anxious, to our desks, haunted always by a sense of doom.

It was not like that. And, such as it was, I attempt to record it—a serious enough life in any sense of the word, monkish in its denial of some pleasures, rigid in discipline, exacting in work, but neither austere nor anxious—such a life as studious boys might live in a Public School, if there can be imagined a Public School in which sport was reduced to the minimum essential to keep one fit for hard "swotting." But a life with some relaxations, and some pleasures, cheerful, actually light-hearted.

Questions of the conduct of the war must obtrude somewhat in this book, but it will be only in so much as they are a necessary background to the story of the life of G.H.Q.—of G.H.Q. in its later phase when it had moved from St. Omer to Montreuil and had become what it was in the final result, a capable Board of Directors of as glorious a company of soldiers as the world has known. There will be no attempt at a history of the war, no battle pictures, which are usually vain efforts to measure the immeasurable. Yet it is hoped that the reader will get from it some idea of the character and the complexities of the struggle.

Already fogs of controversy are obscuring many of the facts of the war. There is a controversy whether the first Commander-in-Chief should have been recalled when he was; about the merits of the second Commander-in-Chief; about the "unity of command" decision; about the relative merits of a strategy which would concentrate everything for a supreme effort in France and a strategy which would seek a "back door" to the German citadel; about the actual cause and duration of the shell shortage. In accordance with our British custom we are mostly taking sides, following some leader and putting our faith in his views, and all his views, implicitly. Thus are formed parties. I claim with honesty, and perhaps with correctness, not to belong to any of the parties. I have set down these observations on G.H.Q. without a thought of whether they may support this view or that view on the conduct of the war.

THE AUTHOR.

THE BOULOGNE GATE

CHAPTER I.

BEFORE G.H.Q. WENT TO MONTREUIL.

The first stages of the War—"Trench War," a good German invention—The Battle of Eyes—Waiting for the Big Push—The Loos disappointment—Moving G.H.Q. to Montreuil.

It was the task of General Headquarters to try to see the War as a whole, to obtain a knowledge not only of the strictly military situation but, to an extent, also of the moral and the political situation of the enemy and of our own forces. In the later stages of the campaign that task was being done, pace all the critics, with an efficiency that was wonderful, seeing that before the Great War the British nation did not allow its Army any chance at all of war practice on a big scale. Our Generals, whatever skill they might have won in studying the theory of war, had had no opportunity to practise big movements. They were very much in the position of men trained in the running of a small provincial store who were asked suddenly to undertake the conduct of one of the mammoth "universal providers."

It is of G.H.Q. in the later stages of the war that I write, not G.H.Q. of the earlier stages, when our Army was finding its feet. But a slight generalisation regarding those earlier stages is necessary to an understanding of the subsequent growth of the Army organisation and of its Board of Directors at G.H.Q.

The small Army which crossed to France in 1914 was organised as an Expeditionary Force for a war of movement. It did gallant work in the first phase, as all have admitted. When the war of movement stopped and the struggle settled down to the War of the Trenches, though that gave a good opportunity of recruiting, it brought up an entirely new set of problems, for which our organisation had made no provision at all and in which British natural gifts did not have the best chance of display. Indeed our training system at home refused in 1914-15 to "recognise" Trench War. The New Armies were trained on the same lines as the old Regular Army, but of course more hurriedly, more intensively, less efficiently. They learned Trench Warfare—an almost entirely different game—when they got out to the Front. A reversal of the process—to have taught the much simpler Trench Warfare in the home camps and left the teaching of movement warfare to training intervals in France—was an obviously more economical system, and it was that adopted at a later stage.

When a considered history of the war comes to be written, probably it will give to the German High Command high praise for this period of "Trench War." It was the one conspicuously good invention of the enemy. It enabled him almost completely to stop the war in the one theatre where he had to meet troops superior to his own, whilst his forces ranged round Europe winning cheap victories and finally (though too late as it proved) vanquishing opposition elsewhere. There is no doubt that the Trench War device baffled our side for a time. I like the story of Marshal Joffre explaining the position to an American war correspondent and adding:

"You see there is nothing to be done."

"No. I suppose nobody could do anything?"

"Nobody."

"Not even Napoleon?"

But Marshal Joffre paused at that, and after a moment's reflection said:

"Yes, I suppose Napoleon could do something."

Finally the "something" came in the shape of the "Tank."

When Field Marshal Earl Haig took over the chief command he adopted the system of frequent "raids" to give to the Trench War some of the character of moving war, and that proved a highly useful step. Still, this Trench War was not of the genius of our people; and it was very dull. If I were seeking the fit adjective which could be applied to it in its superlative it would certainly not be "exciting" nor yet "dangerous." The life was exciting and it was dangerous—a little. It was, however, neither very exciting nor very dangerous. But it was very, very curious. Trench war had its moments, its hours of high emotion, of intense excitement, of crowding dangers. Its routine—on the Western front—was laborious, almost to the point of tediousness, demanding a sober and constant carefulness in detail, and—provided you watched the minutes and the winds, the twigs and the sky, had eyes, ears, and nerves always on the alert—it was reasonably safe.

Trench War exciting? No; you could not allow it to be. The moments were rare (to the majority of officers they never came) when the call was for a gallant shout and a forward rush in which leadership took its most obvious and its easiest form. The hours were always when, with cool, suspicious, deducting mind, you were watching a sector, awaiting the enemy's raiding attack or directing your own. Stalking and being stalked, it was interesting, absorbing, but you could not allow it to be exciting, or you would not do your work properly. War was robbed, in that phase of the struggle, of most of its fascinations by the spectacled Germans who had spent the previous half-century in the counting house, the laboratory, and the cellar, preparing to destroy the humanities of civilisation. Trench War was a grubbing kind of business.

Dangerous? Naturally, to an extent. But not nearly so dangerous as one might judge from the lurid accounts of imaginative writers. It had its hours of peril, of horror. But it was not all the time dangerous. For six days out of seven, on an average, a soldier, if he observed the strictest caution, was "following a dangerous trade," nothing more. On the seventh day—I speak in averages—he had his risk about doubled. On very rare occasions he had to take the risk of a fireman who goes into a blazing house to rescue a child, or a policeman who stops a madly bolting horse. Ordinarily one had to be careful "to watch the traffic;" that was all. If you wished to take a long lingering look at the enemy's trench you used a periscope. For a brief glance (to get a wide field of view) you looked over the parapet. There were differing estimates of the length of time it was safe to show your head over the parapet. Some said five seconds, others twenty-five.

"The German is slow in the up-take," remarked the officer who insisted that twenty-five seconds was quite a safe time to look over the parapet.

Behind the parapet it was almost as safe—and on dry days as pleasant—as on a marine parade. A solid fortification of sandbags, proof against any blow except that of a big high-explosive shell, enclosed on each side a walk, drained, paved, lined with dug-outs, in places adorned with little flower beds. I write, of course, of the Trench War in its "settled" stage—not of those grim struggles around Ypres in the Autumn of 1914.

Not exciting, not as dangerous as one would imagine, the Trench War was more curious, more "uncanny," than it is possible to describe. Try to imagine the huge ditch, some 300 miles long, from the North Sea to the Swiss lakes, which was our trench, facing another ditch which was their trench, all lined with Eyes, thousands, millions of Eyes. All day, all night, these Eyes stare and stare. At night the hands serving them break up the dark with star shells, and the brains behind them welcome the day, only because it makes the scrutiny of Death more easy. On the front edge of each ditch the Eyes are thick in line; farther back, in every possible post of observation, are groups of Eyes, and Eyes soar up into the air now and again to stare into the secrets concealed on the other side. There are Eyes of infantry, Eyes of artillery, Eyes of airmen. The scrutiny never pauses for an instant. Let an Eye blink a moment and it may mean catastrophe, a stealthy rush on a trench or a flood of poisoning gas. The great dark gutter stretching across Belgium and France was fringed with staring Eyes; and every Eye had to record its message to G.H.Q.

Carefulness, tedious, monotonous carefulness, absolute punctuality, and grave attention to every detail—these were the warrior qualities in the Trench War period. The minutes had to be watched, the grass watched lest you trod down a path and gave away some secret to the Eyes yonder. All the minute details of life were hedged in with precautions and penalties.

This tedious Trench War was not the game for British blood, though on the whole it was done well, especially after Loos when the raiding policy was instituted. But it was tedious; and very clearly it was impossible to win while it lasted. For victory the Germans had to be turned out of those trenches. So, during the tedium of the Trench War we would comfort ourselves with the thought that very soon the Big Push must come. Often the most definite news came that it was fixed for the next month. This very definite news was usually traced back to some signaller who had overheard something on the telephone. Perhaps Divisional H.Q. had a Member of Parliament (doing a "Cook's tour" of the Front) to dinner and peremptory messages were going down to the Coast asking for lobsters to be sent up. Now a guileless signaller would never imagine that Generals and the like were interested in lobster. If he thought of their diet at all he probably imagined they lived on trench maps—of which the consumption was certainly huge. Thus the signaller, hearing strange peremptory messages about lobsters, might conclude that this was some very secret code, and, the Big Push being in all our thoughts, that it would have reference to that most certainly. But for many months it was not the Big Push; it was only the lobster, which was the standard of gaiety and dissipation at a Mess Dinner.

At the time of the Loos attack it did really seem that the Big Push had come. But we were disappointed. Perhaps at the Front we were as impatient at the result as the people at home, but we could soothe our impatience with the thought of the greatness of the technical difficulties of arranging an advance with a battle-line hundreds of miles in length, all entrenched (difficulties which did not occur to those gentlemen who wrote weekly expert articles, to show how it should be done). It was clear that if we could push forward a little at certain vital points, a rich reward would be reaped. We knew that what would seem the obvious thing—to press along the whole line and break through in the weak parts—would have only landed us in a number of advanced salients which would be hard, or impossible, to defend when they came under enfilade fire. There were scores of places in which the German would willingly have let us through; to destroy the advanced party afterwards. We had to aim to push in wedges at our own selected points where the salient thus formed could be defended and could seriously threaten a German line of communication. It was not easy, for the number of those points was limited and the German knew them all.

Loos showed very plainly what we were "up against." There was a long pause for further preparation, a pause which seemed unendurably long at the time when the French were taking such a hammering at Verdun and we were going on with tedious Trench War and still more tedious preparations behind the lines.

Criticism of the British military effort at this stage of the war was fairly general and sometimes very hostile. Some assumed that we had tried our last blow at Loos and that we would never do more than hold a trench sector until the French could finish the war. At Home there were critics who argued that the British military effort would have been more wisely directed if, in the first stage of the war, the British Expeditionary Force had been kept at home and used as the nucleus for training a great continental army, ignoring the pressing circumstances of August, 1914.

Undoubtedly in that way a great British Army could have been far more quickly raised. Undoubtedly, too, the task of forming the new British Army was very seriously handicapped by the draining away to France of practically all the fully-trained men of military age in Great Britain. But with a choice of two courses Great Britain took the more daring and the more generous one; and that in human affairs is generally the better one. The material help which the Five Divisions of the British Army gave to the French was not negligible. The moral help was much greater. The lack of those Divisions might have lost Paris to the French and left the Germans in control of all France north and east of the Seine; and that event might have ended the war—it would certainly have prejudiced seriously the French recovery.

The risk taken by Great Britain in stripping her own territory of its only efficient army was not inconsiderable. Direct attack by Germany was seriously feared then. A bolder German naval policy, indeed, might have secured an invasion of England. Plans were drawn up in England at one time on the supposition of a German descent on our coasts being successful in its first stages, and it was proposed to meet this by converting a wide coastal section of England into a desert.

Criticism was to be silenced in time, for presently we were to open that giant battle which was not to finish until November, 1918, and which was then to finish with the British Army the most important force in the Field.

G.H.Q. moved to Montreuil on March 31st, 1916. On the same date, it may be said, the British Army in France came to man's estate. It had been up to this an "auxiliary army" holding a small section of the front, and a "training army" getting ready to take over—as ultimately it did take over—the main burden of the war; for, counting its captures of prisoners and guns from August, 1918, to November 11th, 1918, the British Army's share in the final victory was almost equal to that of the French, American and Belgian forces combined.

G.H.Q. came to Montreuil because St. Omer, the old G.H.Q. town, was no longer suitable as the centre for the vast operations pending. It had served well enough when we formed the left wing of the French battle line. Now we were to be the spear-head of the thrust against Germany.

Look back upon the little British Army of at first four and then five Divisions, which in 1914 took rank alongside the French by Mons, and fell back fighting until the rally of the Marne; and then upon the Army of 1916 of ten times the strength, which was directed from Montreuil. The growth shows as marvellous, and especially so to those who understand how an army in the field is comparable to an iceberg at sea, of which the greater part is unseen. For every rifleman in the trenches and gunner in the gun-pits there are at least three other people working to keep him supplied with food, clothing, ammunition, and on communications. So an Army's growth demands a growth behind the line three times as great as that in the line. And this growth is not merely a matter of the multiplication of riflemen and gunners and auxiliaries, a heaping up of men. It must be an organic growth to be effective at all; an adding one by one of highly complex and yet homogeneous units.

A "Division" is the integral unit of any Army, and a Division must have in the field its infantry battalions, cavalry or cyclist companies, field batteries, signallers (with "wireless," telephone and telegraph service), engineers, transport and supply services, medical and ambulance services. All told, it numbered about 17,000 officers and men at the close of the war, but in 1914 the strength of a Division was nearer to 20,000. And this body of 20,000 was not a mob, nor a crowd, nor yet even a simple organization such as a band of factory employees. It was a nation in microcosm, its constituent numbers covering almost the whole of the activities of life. It had to be organised to fight, to keep up communications, to manufacture and repair, to feed itself and its horses, to keep good health conditions in its camps and to succour its sick and wounded. Besides fighting men it had doctors, vets., sanitary engineers, mechanics of all kinds, chemists, electricians. Behind the line the Division's supports, its munition and clothing factories, its food providers, had to be organised just as carefully.

Nothing can be made without making mistakes, and in the carrying out of this giant task of making the Army of the British Empire there were many mistakes of detail. It is in the nature of the human mind to see such mistakes in high relief, as the human eye sees small patches of stone stand out from a vast field of snow. But, making the worst that can be made of the mistakes, if they are seen in proper perspective they cannot blur the dazzling brilliance of a marvellous achievement.

Most of the mistakes, moreover, were direct consequences of that innocence of warlike intention and that passion for human right and liberty which was common to Great Britain as to the rest of Western Europe, and on which, clearly, the German Powers had counted as sufficient to paralyse effective resistance to their deliberate and designed preparation. Hindering those good qualities of peacefulness proved to be, but not paralysing. After all, the task was done. That most dangerous first rush of German militarism was stayed. The powerful beast was kept within bounds whilst weapons were forged for his destruction. In vain were all his efforts, backed by the skill of half a century of preparation and Spartan discipline.

Montreuil was chosen as G.H.Q. for a wide variety of reasons. It was on a main road from London to Paris—the two chief centres of the campaign—though not on a main railway line, which would have been an inconvenience. It was not an industrial town and so avoided the complications alike of noise and of a possibly troublesome civil population.[1] It was from a telephone and motor transit point of view in a very central situation to serve the needs of a Force which was based on Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne, Dieppe, and Havre, and had its front stretching from the Somme to beyond the Belgian frontier.

A great general, asked to define in a phrase what was wanted for a Headquarters, said "A central remoteness." It was urged that this seemed an oxymoron. "Well then, if you like, a remote centrality." The finality of that allowed of no further argument. Montreuil provided both a central position and a position remote from the disturbances and distractions of traffic, of a large population, of gay social interests. The great Ecole Militaire offered accommodation for the chief offices. There was sufficient billeting accommodation in the town houses and the neighbouring chateaux.

THE 'CAVÉE' SAINT FIRMIN

G.H.Q. of course was never a great camp. Its total military population was never more than 5,000, including those G.H.Q. troops who were needed for guards and who were drawn first from the Artists' Rifles, then from the Honourable Artillery Company, then from the Newfoundland Regiment, and finally from the Guernsey Regiment. Accommodation at Montreuil was reinforced somewhat by hutments in 1917-18, but on the whole the town was big enough for its purpose.

CHAPTER II.

MONTREUIL AND THE MONTREUILLOIS.

How the Montreuillois once learned to hate the English—Early history of the famous town—Its link with the early Roman-British Empire—A border town in the Anglo-French Wars—When G.H.Q. was bombed.

Military convenience alone dictated the choice of Montreuil as the site of the General Headquarters of the British Expeditionary Force in France as soon as that Force reached to such a strength as to take its full share in the campaign. But the choice might well have been influenced by a sentimental desire to make this town, which was so intimately associated with the old enmity between England and France, the centre of the Great Reconciliation. Montreuil and the Montreuillois for many centuries cordially hated England, and not without good reason. In April, 1369, they chased the English from the town with hoots of "A la queue, à la queue les Anglais." After 550 years, in April, 1919, they saw the British G.H.Q. leave Montreuil with what different feelings!

Very curious is the way in which Montreuil has been linked up with Anglo-French history. In the days of the Roman occupation of Gaul the Roman Empire had a naval station close to, or actually on, the great fortress rock which guarded the mouth of the Canche and which was then a peninsula jutting out into the sea. This station, no doubt, Julius Cæsar used in his expedition against Britain. Later Carausius, a Roman Briton, revolted against the Roman Empire and, by winning the command of the Channel with his Fleet, maintained for a time an independent Britain. He assumed the state of Cæsar and founded a Roman-British Empire. The Classis Britannica of the Roman Empire had had its chief station at or near Montreuil. With the revolt of Carausius there was no longer a "British Fleet" of the Roman Empire, and the Classis Samarica (the Fleet of the Somme) was organised to hold the coasts of Gaul for the Roman Power against the British rebel, Carausius. This Fleet of the Somme had a station on the Canche, at or near Montreuil. Doubtless in those very early years of the Christian era there was many a naval action between the British sea forces and those of the Romans stationed on the Canche.

Of any actual Roman buildings on the hill of Montreuil there exists to-day no trace. But it may be accepted as certain that the Gauls had fortified this great hill at the mouth of the Canche and that the Roman Conquerors did not neglect its strategical advantages. It is well within the bounds of the historic imagination to picture Carausius, the man who first taught England that her fate depended on the holding of the Narrow Seas, looking with vain hostility on a well-fortified Roman naval station at Montreuil which often sent harassing expeditions against his coast. In later years of Anglo-French enmity Montreuil was Montreuil-sur-mer only in name, for the sea had retreated ten miles, and Etaples was the port at the mouth of the Canche; but in the Roman days and for some centuries after, Montreuil was a good harbour for trade or for war.

When the barbarian invasions overwhelmed the Roman Empire, Montreuil disappeared from history until the Seventh Century, when the monk St. Saulve (subsequently Bishop of Amiens) built a monastery on the great hill. From this monastery, without much doubt, the name of Montreuil comes; for in all old French manuscripts it is spelt "Monstereul," which is an easy step from "Monasteriolum," "the place of the monastery." In St. Saulve's day Montreuil appears to have been a bold promontory at the edge of the sea, with the River Canche running close to its base and a thriving village at its foot. According to some accounts, St. Saulve's first monastery was built on the ruins of an earlier castle; if so it would probably have been a castle of Roman origin.

Montreuil became a famous shrine, and reports came from it of many miracles. The Saints Omer, Riquier, Bertin and Josse, whose names are kept on record in St. Omer and other neighbouring towns and villages, were monks of the Montreuil monastery. There is a Forest of Josse just near Montreuil, and I regret to say that some American officers were persuaded to believe that it got its name from being the site of a Chinese Labour Joss-house, to the lessening of the glory of St. Josse.

With the ravages of the pirate Northmen another period of darkness falls upon the town of Montreuil until the 9th century, when the famous Count Hildgood (that is to say "hold-good," a stubborn man in the fight) resolved to make head against the Northmen, and in defence of his county of Ponthieu built on Montreuil Hill a strong fortress. Traces of this fortress still exist in the town. The Hotel de France (which was a meeting place for officers of G.H.Q. when a dinner away from Mess formalities was desired) stands on part of the site of "Hold-good's" fortress.

Count Hildgood was something of a statesman as well as a soldier, and encouraged a civilian population to collect at the foot of his fortress, and used the glory of St. Saulve's monastery to attract to the place other religious communities from Brittany and elsewhere. Montreuil became thus a famous strong-point. It developed on the familiar lines of a mediæval city with its well-established local rights, those of "the peers of the peerage of Montreuil." The ravages of the Northmen in the surrounding country continued, but Montreuil was too strong for them and grew into a city of refuge, giving hospitality to many religious refugee communities even from as far away as Brittany.

It remained without dispute a part of the county of Ponthieu until 939, when, as related by the monkish historian Richer, it was coveted by the Count of Flanders and captured through the treachery of the governor, Robert le Chepier. (One of the towers of the existing fortifications still bears his name). The children of the Count of Ponthieu were taken captives and sent to the English Court to be held as prisoners—giving rise to one of the first of the many grudges that the good Montreuillois had against England. The Count of Ponthieu appealed for help to the then Duke of Normandy (William of the Long Sword). The help was given, Montreuil was wrested from the Flemings, and handed back to the Count of Ponthieu according to some accounts, held by the Normans according to other accounts, which have a greater air of reasonableness, for the Normans were good at taking and slow at giving back.

OUTSIDE THE RAMPARTS

But all disputes as to the possession of Montreuil between the Counts of Ponthieu and Flanders and the Duke of Normandy were settled by the King of France, Hugo Capet, who made the town part of the Royal Domain of France and built a great fortified château by the side of the old citadel. A part of this château still remains, "the Tower of Queen Bertha," so-called from the unhappy fate of Bertha, Queen of Philip I. of France. She was the daughter of the Count Florent I. of Holland, and had borne Philip three children when he became enamoured of the wife of the Count of Anjou and shut his own wife up to die in Montreuil. To quote the old chronicle: "Il la mist en prison en un fort chastel qui a nom Monstereul-sur-la-mer." The poor lady seems to have been most harshly treated, and was left dependent on the charity of the townsfolk for her food. The children of Montreuil recall the story to this day when begging for money for the churches with the cry "Give, give, to your Queen."

By this time the Norman Conquest had given England a place in European politics. The 13th Century brought Montreuil under the English Crown. Jeanne, Countess of Ponthieu and Montreuil, had married the King of Castille and Leon. Their daughter Eleonora of Castille married Edward I., King of England, and part of her dowry was Montreuil. Edward I. came over in 1279 to take over his new possession, and promised the Montreuillois to safeguard all their local rights and privileges. But the good folk of the town did not like the English of that day, and disputes were constant. They rejoiced when war broke out between France and England (a war in which the French had the Scots as allies and the English the Flemings); for the King of France exempted Montreuil from her feudal duty to the English King.

That war was stopped by the intervention of Pope Boniface, and a Peace Conference assembled at Montreuil. One of the peace conditions was that the Prince of Wales should marry the daughter of the King of France, and this marriage was celebrated with great magnificence at Boulogne, the young princess passing through Montreuil to the wedding. She received as her pin-money from her husband the revenues of Ponthieu and Montreuil.

But that marriage did not make for peace. On the contrary its fruits were a new series of wars interrupted by an occasional truce or brief peace. Crécy and Agincourt were both fought almost in sight of Montreuil. The district round was ravaged again and again by the English forces, and several times the town itself was besieged in vain. After Crécy, Edward tried to take it and failed. An incident of one of the peace treaties was the visit of Chaucer, the poet, to Montreuil as an English plenipotentiary. An incident of one of the wars was the passage through Montreuil of the funeral procession of King Henry V.

So through the years Montreuil was in the very heart of the struggle between English and French. It was in a manner the border town between the territory in France which was admitted to be English, and the disputed territory. Thus it learned a deep hatred of the English. Often as a condition of peace it was handed over to English domination; never was it content with that destiny. Finally, the ambition of the English Kings to add France to their realms—an ambition which was as bad for England as it was for France—was definitely frustrated. Montreuil, passionately French in spirit, "the most faithful town in all Picardy," as Henry of Navarre called it, was no more to be vexed either by English governors or English marauders.

But Montreuil cherished its dislike of the English, and probably had never been so happy for centuries as when in 1804 it was the headquarters of the left wing of Napoleon's Army for the invasion of England. General Ney was the officer in command at Montreuil, and his brilliant receptions brought back to the town some of its Middle Ages pomp. It was from Montreuil that in 1804 General Ney addressed to Napoleon a memorial begging him to take the Imperial Crown for the sake of France. Napoleon himself visited Montreuil more than once, and a house in which he slept is still shown in the Place Verte.

Little or nothing of this was in the minds of our Staff in deciding upon Montreuil as a site for G.H.Q. It was convenient (as its choice in old times for Peace Conferences between England and France clearly shows) to London and to Paris. It was off any main traffic route, and promised quiet for telephone services. The feelings of the inhabitants were presumed to be friendly, and the presumption was justified, though curiously enough there was in 1918 a slight revival of the old anti-English feelings, and I even heard whispered again "à la queue les Anglais." It all arose from what must be admitted to have been rather an undignified incident.

There used to be a fable—no one was fonder of giving it circulation than the Red Tabs—that there was a mutual agreement between the Germans and ourselves that G.H.Q. on both sides was to be spared from air raids.

"The arrangement is a classic instance of our stupidity," the Red Tab humorist would remark, "for the German scores both ways."

"How is that?"

"Well, his Staff is spared, which is valuable to him. And our Staff is spared, which is also valuable to him."

Staff officers, B.E.F., could afford to pass on gibes like that in 1917-18 when British Staff work was the model which the new American armies set themselves to imitate.

But as a matter of fact in the summer of 1918 G.H.Q. was bombed pretty regularly by the enemy. Those who lived there had unhappy proof of that. There were several deaths from bombs in and near the town. After the first bombing attacks orders were issued that no soldier, except sentries and officers on night duty, was to be allowed to sleep in Montreuil. The whole garrison was to go into the woods at night, or to take refuge in the deep dug-outs which were tunnelled under the city. Hardly a night passed without a bombing raid, until the tide of battle turned and the German bomber had neither heart nor means for nocturnal wanderings.

There was no doubt that a good motive inspired the orders for the nightly evacuation of the town by officers and soldiers except those actually on duty. It was thought that the Germans had discovered G.H.Q. and had resolved one night to "wipe it out." A really determined raid concentrated on a small walled town might have effected that. But the nightly march out of the troops did not impress favourably the inhabitants, who mostly had to stay. Some of them openly jeered; others made less parade of their feelings, but had them all the same.

"Where are the English?"

"The English are in the woods of Wailly."

That was a favourite street-corner gibe.

Most officers who did not get direct orders to leave the town of nights kept to their billets, but all the rank and file were marched out, or rather driven out by motor lorries. The Officers' Club closed early of evenings so that the Q.M.A.A.C.s might be evacuated to a camp outside the town. At this camp they evidently did not have the same conveniences as in the town for dressing their hair and so on; and they had to start off very early in the morning to be in time to wait at breakfast. Tempers as well as coiffures were a little ragged in consequence.

THE MARKET

One advantage that we won from the bomb 'scare' (if that word is justified) was that it gave a stimulus to archæological research in the town. There was at G.H.Q. at the time, as a Major, R.E., that fine "sport" Professor David of Sydney University. Professor David has a great celebrity as a geologist. His birth year was 1858, so he is not exactly a youngster except in heart. But the spirit of adventure and patriotism which sent him out to the South Pole with the Shackleton Expedition in 1907-1909 sent him from Australia to this war. He did useful work with an Australian Tunnelling Company in connection with the famous Messines mine, and his knowledge as a geologist was afterwards of great use to G.H.Q. in matters of mines, of water supply, and the like. Now he was asked to take in hand the task of providing good under-ground dug-outs for the Montreuil garrison. His researches disclosed some very interesting old galleries or quarries under the citadel. Passages were cut through to these from points in the Ramparts, and I believe that even the good citizens of Montreuil did not disdain to take advantage of the English "dug-outs" when the German bombs began to fall.

All the same, when that nightly march out of the town was dropped we were all very glad; and our relations with the townspeople were restored to their old serenity.

At the worst the hostile section was not a very large one. Many officers who were at G.H.Q. have memories of warm personal friendships with some of the French residents, who did all that was in their power to make them feel that France was a second home. At one residence (where I was billetted for a time, that of M. Laurent and his wife) the lady had established a homely little salon, which was quite a student's centre not only for officers but for other ranks. Mme. Laurent spoke English well, and it was her hobby to teach French to any willing pupil of the British Army and to interest soldiers in the history of the old town. There were many others who took the same kindly interest in our mental welfare.

The good Montreuillois of 1919 certainly did not hate the English as their ancestors had done. They considered that the five years since 1914 had washed out all old injuries.[[2]]

CHAPTER III.

G.H.Q. AT WORK.

The Functions of G.H.Q.—The varying conditions to be met—The working hours—The organisation of a branch—The Chief's system.

To the very end of the war, no doubt, an occasional young regimental officer could be found who knew exactly what G.H.Q. did: "They swanked about in Red Tabs and cars: had a gorgeous 'mike,' and, to keep up a show of work, issued all kinds of fool orders which nobody in the trenches had any time to read."

This theory of the functions of G.H.Q. had quite a vogue in "regimental circles" at one time. It was not, of course, founded on any mental process or it would be deeply interesting to investigate how these gentlemen came to think that ammunition and supplies could arrive fortuitously, that a concentration of troops or of Tanks could "just happen."

LIEUT-GENERAL THE HON. SIR H. A. LAWRENCE
(Chief of the General Staff)

But, apart from that sort of thoughtless talk, there was, even among senior officers, some lack of knowledge as to what exactly the hermits of Montreuil did. They knew of them as issuing General Routine Orders in the name of the Commander-in-Chief (some 5,000 of these G.R.O.s were issued in the course of the war); as circulating, more privately, secret orders and instructions, and perhaps of making occasional appearances on the battle-field, though probably the majority of regimental officers never saw a G.H.Q. officer. In brief summary, the more important functions of G.H.Q. were:

1. G.H.Q. was the link between the B.E.F. and the British Government. The War Cabinet sitting in London was the supreme authority. The Secretary of State for War was its spokesman and, with the War Office Staff, its adviser. The Commander-in-Chief was the Army's spokesman and, with his G.H.Q., the negotiator with the Secretary of State for War. In the final result the B.E.F. had to do what it was ordered to do by the Secretary of State, but the Commander-in-Chief was usually consulted beforehand, and had always the right of discussion and of remonstrance. The relations between the Home Government and the Army were recognised as the most important matter dealt with by G.H.Q., and War Office letters had a special priority. No one except the Commander-in-Chief communicated directly with the War Office.

2. G.H.Q. was the link between the British Army in the Field and the Allied armies—the French, American, Belgian and Portuguese. Relations between these were maintained through Military Missions, we keeping a Mission with the G.H.Q. of the Allied Army, they keeping Missions with our G.H.Q. There was, quite apart from big questions of operations, discussion of which was confined to the Chief of the General Staff and the heads of the foreign Missions, an immense amount of technical transport, supply and finance work between the Allies. There was hardly an officer of G.H.Q. who did not in some detail come into relations with the foreign Missions.

3. G.H.Q. had to decide the strategy of the campaign in its relation to the British sector. After the unity of Command there was a somewhat lessened responsibility in this matter, but the work was practically the same. The Commander-in-Chief, in consultation with his Chief of Staff, his Quartermaster-General and his Adjutant-General, decided when and with what forces we should attack, when adopt a defensive policy. To come to those decisions a close and constant study was necessary by the various branches of G.H.Q. of the state of the enemy's forces, our own numbers and morale, our possibilities of transport and supply.

4. G.H.Q. had to arrange the supply, from Home and from its own workshops and local civilian workshops, of all the wonderful equipment of the forces, from a Tank and a 15-inch howitzer to a tin of dubbin; all the ammunition and all the food supplies to man and beast. There came to the ports of France every month for the B.E.F. about 800,000 tons of stuff. The men to be fed totalled over 2,000,000 and the animals to be fed about 500,000. A month's supply of ammunition weighed about 260,000 tons.

5. G.H.Q. managed a transport system which used constantly about half a million horses and mules and about 20,000 motor lorries, running over 9,000,000 motor miles per month; which carried on its light railways about 544,000 tons a month and ran every day 250 trains on broad gauge lines.

6. G.H.Q. was constantly building new railways and new roads, and developing new harbour facilities. It ran big canal and sea services, forestry and agricultural services, repair shops, laundries, etc., on a gigantic scale.

7. G.H.Q managed the vast medical services for wounded and sick, the veterinary services, the laboratories for the defence of our men and animals against poison gas and for the gas counter-offensive. It was responsible for the organisation of the Chaplains' services, for educational work and the amusement of the men.

Such was the work of G.H.Q. It was carried on under these varying conditions:

1. Maintaining a stabilised position. This was comparatively easy. Wastage of men, horses and material could be calculated with some certainty and replaced by a routine process.

2. Preparing for a big attack. This made the greatest strain on Transport and Supply, and the necessary conditions of secrecy added complications and difficulties. In preparing an offensive the Traffic more than doubled per Division. The necessary making of new railways and new roads and the accumulation of defence material to fortify a new line were responsible for most of this. But the accumulation of a big head of ammunition was also a factor. On a quiet sector two Divisions could get along with about three trains daily. For the purposes of a big attack ten Divisions might be concentrated on that sector and those ten Divisions in the preparatory stage of the attack would need about 33 supply trains a day, and during the offensive about 27 trains a day. Put the problem into terms of civil railway administration. Tell the manager of the London to Brighton line that next week he must carry 15 times the normal traffic for a number of days and that it is extremely important that people observing his termini and his lines should not notice anything unusual.

3. Resisting a big attack. The most difficult element of this was its unexpectedness. The total provision needed for it was less than for an offensive. The amount of supplies necessary to go up by train per Division from Base would be 25 per cent. less than in the case of the preparation of a big attack. We always carried a good reserve stock of ammunition, food, and engineering stores close behind the line, and a further reserve of ammunition already loaded on trains at appropriate railway centres. In case of emergency, ammunition could start moving up in just the time necessary to hitch a locomotive on to a standing train. Experience of the German offensive in 1918 showed that we carried near the front line too great reserves, and we lost a good deal of food, stores and ammunition in consequence. That big attack indeed disclosed several chinks in our armour. It showed that in some cases during Trench War units had allowed themselves to become immobile. (To give one example, many Casualty Clearing Stations had burdened themselves with surgical stores and equipment which should be reserved for stationary hospitals. Thus burdened, they were tempted to evacuate too soon). There were weaknesses, too, in Ammunition Columns, and the railway system was not nearly elastic enough. But we pulled through, largely because the British officer and soldier has always a bit in reserve and never thinks so quickly or acts so bravely as when in a tight corner.

4. Carrying on a general offensive. This was the supreme test of the British Staff from August, 1918, to November, 1918. It called for an effort that put in the category of easy things all that had gone before. The effort was gloriously successful. The British Army succeeded where the German Army in 1914, under far more favourable circumstances, had failed.

I have given only the most important of the functions of G.H.Q. and a very inadequate idea of the conditions under which it had to carry on its tasks, yet for all this there were only 300 officers at Montreuil and 240 officers at the outlying directorates.

It did not leave much chance for idleness! At G.H.Q., in my time, in my branch, no officer who wished to stay was later than 9 a.m. at his desk; most of the eager men were at work before then. We left at 10.30 p.m. if possible, more often later. On Saturday and Sunday exactly the same hours were kept. "An hour for exercise" in the afternoon was supposed to be reserved, in addition to meal-hours; but it was not by any means always possible. During the worst of the German offensive in the spring of 1918 Staff officers toiled from 8.30 a.m. to midnight, with half-hour intervals for meals. I have seen a Staff officer faint at table from sheer pressure of work, and dozens of men, come fresh from regimental work, wilt away under the fierce pressure of work at G.H.Q.

The extreme character of the strain at G.H.Q. used to be recognised by a special allowance of leave. A short leave every three months was, for a long time, the rule. With pressure of work, that rule fell in abeyance, and a G.H.Q. Staff Officer was lucky to get a leave within six months. In the case of the big men at the head of the departments leave was something to be talked of, dreamt of, but never realised. Compared with conditions at G.H.Q. regimental work was care-free and pleasant.

G.H.Q. was organised in this fashion. At the head was the Commander-in-Chief and his personal staff consisting of an Assistant Military Secretary, a Private Secretary, a Medical Officer, an Officer in charge of escorts and five A.D.C.s. Attached to this personal staff were an American and a French Staff Officer. There was one officer of the Dominions on the Chief's personal staff, Captain Botha, a son of the late General Botha, Prime Minister of South Africa. With his personal staff the Commander-in-Chief was quartered at a château near Montreuil.

One rarely saw "the Chief." He seldom had occasion to come to the offices in the Ecole Militaire, and it was only the highest officers who had to go to confer with him. But his presence was always felt. There was no more loyal band of brothers than the Grand Staff of the British Army in 1918, and the humblest member at G.H.Q. expressed the spirit of the Commander-in-Chief, and, within his sphere, was trying to do exactly as the Commander-in-Chief would do. When "the Chief" did appear at Montreuil all felt they had the right to desert work for five minutes to go to a window to catch a glimpse of him as he passed from one side of the Ecole Militaire to the other, or stopped in the great courtyard to chat for a moment with one of his officers.

Under the Chief the staff was divided into branches. There was the "Military Secretary's Branch," a small branch under Major-General H. G. Ruggles-Brise, whose duties were to look after honours, promotions, etc. There was the General Staff Branch, under Lieut.-General the Hon. Sir H. A. Lawrence, divided into the Operations Section, under Major-General J. H. Davidson (having charge of the actual strategy and tactics in the campaign); the Staff Duties Section, under Major-General G. P. Dawnay; and the Intelligence Section, under Brigadier-General G. S. Clive (having charge of the collection of information as to the enemy's movements, dispositions, intentions, etc.). There was the Adjutant-General's Branch, under Lieutenant-General Sir G. H. Fowke (having charge of discipline). There was the Quartermaster-General's Branch, under Lieutenant-General Sir Travers Clarke (having charge of supply and transport). Finally there were certain officers with special duties attached to G.H.Q. but not directly under any of these branches, such as the Officer Commanding Royal Artillery, the Inspector of Machine Gun Units, the Engineer-in-Chief, the officers in charge of Mines and Searchlights, the Inspector of Training, the Chief Chaplains, the Provost Marshal, and the Deputy Judge Advocate-General.

LIEUT-GENERAL SIR G. H. FOWKE
(Adjutant-General, B.E.F.)

Of the branches of the Staff, the Quartermaster-General's was far the greatest, for under it came all the transport and supply services. This was the formidable list:

Director of Agricultural Production (Brig.-Gen. the Earl of Radnor).

Director of Army Postal Services (Brig.-Gen. Price).

Deputy Controller of E.F. Canteens (Col. E. Benson).

Director of Engineering Stores (Brig.-Gen. Sewell).

Director of Forestry (Brig.-Gen. Lord Lovat).

Director of Hirings and Requisitions, and President of Claims Commission (Major-Gen. Rt. Hon. L. B. Friend).

Controller of Labour (Brig.-Gen. Wace).

Director of Ordnance Services (Major-Gen. Sir C. M. Mathew).

Paymaster-in-Chief (Major-Gen. Sir C. A. Bray).

Director of Remounts (Brig.-Gen. Sir F. S. Garrett).

Controller of Salvage (Brig.-Gen. Gibb).

Director of Supplies (Major-Gen. Carter).

Director of Motor Transport (Major-Gen. Boyce).

Director-General of Transportation (Major-Gen. Crookshank).

Director of Veterinary Services (Major-Gen. Moore).

Vice-Chairman Imperial War Graves Commission (Major-Gen. Ware).

Director of Works (Major-Gen. Sir A. M. Stuart).

Nor does that finish the list, for subsidiary directorates under the Director-General of Transportation were:

Director of Construction (Brig.-Gen. Stewart).

Director of Docks (Brig.-Gen. Wedgewood).

Director of Inland Water Transport (Brig.-Gen. Luck).

Director of Light Railways (Brig.-Gen. Harrison).

Director of Railway Traffic (Brig.-Gen. Murray).

Director of Roads (Brig.-Gen. Maybury).

The Transportation Directorate was, so to speak, a sub-branch of the Staff. It had a great standard-gauge railway system which kept 900 locomotives running, which in one day could send 196 trains from the Bases to railheads (this irrespective of trains on lateral lines) and in one week once moved 439,801 troops and in one month 1,539,410 troops. Its railway system was constantly being pushed forward, being duplicated, and being furnished with "avoiding lines." Further, Transportation had a light railway system which carried 174,923 tons a week. Those were only two of its activities. On inland waterways, Transportation carried 293,593 tons a month, and it worked, in addition, a coastal barge traffic, a cross-Channel barge service, and a cross-Channel Ferry. Of roads, it maintained about 4,106 miles and was always making new ones; and it took 4,400 tons of material—much of it imported by sea—to make a mile of new road.

These figures are impressive enough in themselves and yet give little real sense of the full task of the Transportation Services. That can only be realised when it is kept in mind that practically all the work had to be carried out under conditions of shock and violent movement. It was not a matter of peacefully carrying on a routine business. At every point there was a constant liability to interruption and destruction by enemy action. At every hour there was some new development requiring some change of method, of destination. The vast machine had to be as elastic as it was powerful.

Yet that was only one sub-branch of the Staff.

It will be of interest to note how all the directorates of the Q Branch of the Staff were co-ordinated so that the man at the top could keep control and yet not be smothered under a mass of detail. Under the head (Lieutenant-General Sir Travers Clarke) of this Branch of the Staff were two deputies (Major-General Ford and Major-General May). Under these deputies were five Brigadier-Generals, and under them nine Lieutenant-Colonels, and these Lieutenant-Colonels divided between them 82 subjects. A table showing the distribution of these subjects was circulated throughout the Staff, and most matters got to the right officer from the beginning, and if they were of a routine nature were dealt with at once without further reference. Very important matters, or new questions arising, went up to one of the Deputies and were referred, or not, to the Q.M.G. as the circumstances dictated. Attached to the Branch and directly under its head was an officer who had charge of all orders and all publications. Nothing could be sent out as an order from the Q.M.G. Branch, or nothing printed as an instruction from the Branch, until it had gone through his hands; and it was his duty to see that one section of the Branch did not tread on the toes of another, that orders and publications did not overlap, and that an order in which several directorates were interested was drafted in accordance with the views of all of them.

Other Branches of the Staff did not call for such elaborate organisation, for their duties were not so various. But all worked on very much the same plan—of delegating authority so that once a line of action on any particular point was decided upon, a comparatively junior staff officer could "carry on" without worrying his superiors by frequent references.

A G.H.Q. officer was distinguished not only by his red staff badges but by a red and blue arm-band. An "attached officer," i.e., an officer who was working with the staff as a learner or a helper and was perhaps graded for pay, etc., as a staff officer, did not wear these distinctions until he was actually appointed to the Staff.

THE GRANDE PLACE

The red and blue arm-band was a chromatic outrage—its glaring colours of course had a purpose—and quite spoiled the appearance of a tunic. But it was dearly prized and as a rule. was worn on leave, though it had then no usefulness. In the field the distinguishing arm-band was of great use, to indicate to officers and men the officials to whom they could appeal in case of need. There were all sorts of arm-bands with various colour symbols and initials in addition to the G.H.Q. one. A list of them will indicate the complexity of the task of a modern army in the field. Special arm-bands of different designs were authorised to distinguish:

• General Headquarters.
• Army Headquarters.
• Army Corps Headquarters.
• Corps Machine Gun Officers.
• R.A.F. Headquarters.
• Cavalry Divisional Headquarters.
• Divisional Headquarters.
• Tank Corps Staff.
• Tank Headquarters.
• Tank Brigade.
• Cavalry Brigade.
• Infantry Brigade.
• Cavalry Divisional Artillery Headquarters.
• Divisional Artillery Headquarters.
• G.H.Q. Troops Headquarters.
• Lines of Communication.
• Provost Marshal and his assistants.
• Signal Service.
• Military Police.
• Railway Transport Officers.
• Embarkation Staff.
• Staff, Directorate of Light Railways.
• Staff, Directorate of Roads.
• Staff, Directorate of Docks.
• Staff, Directorate of Transportation.
• Staff, Directorate Inland Water Transport.
• Staff, Directorate Broad Gauge Railways.
• Light Railways District Superintendent.
• Light Railways Inspector.
• Light Railways Yardmaster.
• Light Railways Controlman.
• Light Railways Guard.
• Officers, Staff Inspector War Trophies.
• Servants to Military Attaches.
• Stretcher bearers.
• All medical personnel.
• Press correspondents and servants.
• Train Conducting Officers.
• Checkers.
• Town Majors.
• Traffic Control.
• Agents de Police Special.
• Instructors of Machine Gun School, Lewis Gun School, and Machine Gun Corps Base Depôt.
• H.Q. Corps Heavy Artillery.
• Special Brigade.
• Area Commandants.
• Billet and Camp Wardens.
• Corps Chemical Advisers.
• Divisional Gas Officers.
• Instructors of Divisional Gas Schools.
• Camouflage Officers attached to Corps.
• Salvage Corps.
• Civilian Platelayers.
• Intelligence Police.
• Sanitary Sections.
• Belgian Civ. Rly. Staff.
• M.L.O. Staff at Ports.
• N.C.O.s and men of Intelligence Corps.
• N.C.O.s and men of Dock Directorate.
• Sentries on Examining Posts.
• Interpreters, Indian Labour Corps.
• Interpreters, Chinese Labour Corps.

The Military Police were supposed to be able to keep all these in memory and an officer in the field had to know the chief ones; and he took care to know at least that for G.H.Q., for it represented the ultimate source of honour and blame. Nothing important could happen to him except through G.H.Q., and that ugly red and blue arm-band always demanded attention, sometimes, no doubt, mixed with a little resentment, because of the idea that G.H.Q. had nothing much to do except to bother the unhappy regimental officer.

We all tried to "live up to" our arm-bands in the crude stained-glass-window colours. The Commander-in-Chief set a high example by choosing his men carefully, giving them their particular jobs and trusting them. He was not one of those fussy souls who want to oversee every detail. The men who worked under him knew that whilst they did their work conscientiously and carefully he would back them against any niggling criticism and against any back-biting. It was a good policy judged by its results. G.H.Q., B.E.F., France, in the summer of 1918 had probably reached as high a summit of soldierly scientific skill as the grand Staff of any Army in the world. The business of improvisation which had been begun in 1914 was finished, actually finished. From G.H.Q. was directed day by day a fighting force which met the chief brunt of the last German attack, held it; then, while it absorbed a great flood of recruits and helped to equip and train the American Army, prepared to take the chief part in the final victorious offensive.

CHAPTER IV.

G.H.Q. AT PLAY.

The walks on the Ramparts—The "Monks" of Montreuil had little time for sport—Precautions against "joy-riding"—The jolly Officers' Club—Watching the Map—Ladies at G.H.Q.?

There was precious little play-time at G.H.Q. But there was some. It was spent very innocently; not to say stodgily. A walk on the Ramparts was the chief recreation of the great majority of the officers.

What a boon those Ramparts were! Within a minute from the Ecole Militaire one could get on the broad walk which crowned the old walls and could follow it round the whole circuit of the town for a mile or more. From every point there was a rich and ample prospect; southward over the swelling downs and little copses towards the forest of Crécy; westward over a richer and more luxuriant plain towards the sea; northward across the woods and marshes of the Canche; eastward along the valley of the river and its bordering hills. On a fine day at the coming up and the going down of the sun, and every hour between, there was a constant festival of light and colour. Stormy and rainy skies gave another beauty to the wide prospect. To see a storm march up in grand procession and pass with its sombre pomp was a fearful joy; and there was a wild beauty, too, in looking out from the walls on the beating of the obstinate rains against hill and plain. Painters from all over the world used to come to Montreuil to attempt to put on canvas the glow of its summer scenes, the wild grandeur of its winters. No day was without its special beauty, and the beauty was ever renewed afresh.

In the early spring the chinks and crannies of the old walls burst into bloom of gillyflowers which hung them with tapestries of gold and red and brown, contrasting gaily with the bright green foliage of the trees growing at the base of the Ramparts and throwing their branches up to their very top. As the season advanced the birds came to build in the trees, and you might peep down into their nests and hear their indignant chirrups at being so closely overlooked. With summer and autumn came new colours, but always splendour and glow and movement. The country around carried that wide variety of crops in which the French peasant's thrifty and careful culture delights. There were beans and oats and wheat and corn and flax and mustard and bits of pasturage, and of fodder crops, weaving their many colours into a delightful carpet pattern which changed with every day of the year and almost with every hour of the day.

THE RAMPARTS

Had it not been for those Rampart walks the toilsome life of G.H.Q. at Montreuil would have been hardly possible. The road from anywhere to anywhere, if time allowed, was by the Ramparts. Going from the Ecole Militaire to the Officers' Club was three minutes by the street, seven minutes by the Ramparts, and most went by the Ramparts unless work was hideously pressing. For those with a little more time to spare there were enchanting rambles around the base of the Ramparts along the Canche valley or in the old fosses of the fortifications.

Riding was not a common exercise. Horses were scarce. Very few officers had their own chargers; and those who had could not find time to exercise them properly. So most of the horses at G.H.Q. were pooled, and an officer having time and inclination took what horse was available. There were many pleasant rides, the favourite one being a shady stretch along the bank of the river.

At one point of the fortifications an old fosse had been converted into hard tennis courts, and these were used a little, but not much. It seems tiresome to be always repeating the same fact but really there was not time to follow tennis or any other sport. At the Officers' Club there was not such a thing as a billiard table; and I never saw a game of cards played there. In some of the private messes there was a feeble attempt to keep up a Bridge or a Poker circle. But to begin to play at cards at 11 p.m. with the knowledge that the office is calling for a clear rested brain by nine the next morning, needs far more than ordinary enthusiasm. I can remember playing cards only three nights during all my time at Montreuil.

There was a theatre at Montreuil, usually given up to cinema shows but occasionally visited by the variety companies which were organised for the amusement of the troops and occasionally also converted into a lecture hall. It was well patronised on special occasions, but in the course of a year made little total demand on officers' time. When, as was usually the case, the theatre was given up to "the pictures" it was filled by "other ranks." The non-commissioned officers and privates who were clerks in the various departments had generally just as little leisure as their officers, but some of the military population had more time to spare; what section I do not know, for even the grooms and the batmen had not easy places. Officers junior to the rank of lieutenant-colonel were not allowed a batman to themselves, but one soldier acted for two or three officers and had various fatigue duties in addition.

THE THEATRE

Just outside the town, G.H.Q. Recreation Ground provided a lumpy football ground and a still more lumpy cricket ground. Both our national games languished, however, for the stock reason—want of time. There were teams, and occasional matches, and sometimes an enthusiastic sportsman would send an urgent whip round to call attention to our deplorable neglect of the games that made England great. He would get a few half-hearted promises of reform, but there was no hope in fighting against the great obstacle. It was like a college in which every one was a "swotter."

So the 300 or so Monks of Montreuil lived their laborious lives. The balance of G.H.Q. staff, some 250, scattered about the environs of Montreuil with their offices at Paris Plage or Le Touquet or the Forest of Crécy, could follow a somewhat milder discipline. They were "Second Echelon" mostly. Current operations had not much concern for them and it was possible to take horse-back exercise, to keep up football and cricket and even tennis and golf. At Le Touquet, which was a well-known pleasure centre before the war, there were good golf links and some excellent tennis courts. On occasions the Commander-in-Chief decided to think out his problems over a round of golf, and a little bungalow was maintained at Le Touquet for his convenience.

Paris Plage was a splendid beach, but so far as G.H.Q. officers were concerned its attractions were wasted. Occasionally an officer having business at one of the Directorates near by would spare an hour for a swim, but it was not possible on a hot Saturday or Sunday to suspend the battle, or the preparation for the battle, in progress and adjourn as a body to the seaside. Not only time but transport was lacking. The only means of getting down to the beach—a distance of about twelve miles—was by motor-car, and regulations against "joy-riding" were strict. Not only were there regulations; there were also precautions to see that the regulations were kept. A car could go out from G.H.Q. garage only on an order from the officer in charge of cars, and it was his business to get a chit as to what was the reason for the journey. Occasionally police patrols would be stationed on the roads with instructions to stop every car and examine its papers. This was excused as a precaution against espionage. It was designed more to be a precaution against waste of petrol or "joy-riding," as a few officers found to their cost.

So the life of the Montreuil officer resolved itself ordinarily into this simple routine: he worked and he walked on the Ramparts. But there was one fine relief to tedium for the majority—a dinner-party every night. The big generals, because they had to, and a few unwise souls, because they chose to, favoured private messes and confronted at dinner at night the same men as they met in the office all day; and, without a doubt, found it rather monotonous. The majority of the officers messed at the Officers' Club, which had a couple of hundred members and could rival the old reputation of the House of Commons as "the finest Club in Europe."

The qualification for joining the Officers' Club was to be an officer of the British Army or of an Allied Army stationed at Montreuil. The subscription was five francs per month, and for that and a ridiculously small sum per day the Club gave members three square meals a day and afternoon tea. The Club kept up a good cellar, and to the very last, when good wine was almost unprocurable in London or Paris except at exorbitant prices, the Officers' Club, Montreuil, could sell a vintage claret or burgundy at nine francs a bottle, a decent wine at five francs a bottle, and champagne at fifteen francs a bottle. The Expeditionary Force Canteens were the caterers, and aimed at only a nominal profit. Once a week there was a fixed guest night and a band, but members could bring guests at any time. Waiting was done by Q.M.A.A.C.s, neat deft little ladies who brought a hint of home to the exiles.

Custom was against forming coteries. So there were constantly differing dinner-parties, and the conversation was rich in variety and interest. The backbone of the Mess were the Regular Army officers, the majority of them colonels, with a sprinkling of brigadiers, a few majors and a few captains. The majority in the Mess, however, were temporary officers, a few of senior rank, mostly staff captains or attached officers. There were always some visitors, a politician or some other personage from home, staff officers from the War Office or from the various Armies, regimental officers having business at G.H.Q., guests from the various private messes at Montreuil.

Talk ranged from the most serious shop to the most airy nothings. There were experts there in almost every department of human knowledge, men who had seen many cities and known the minds of many men. The representatives of the Allied nations gave an extra note of variety. You might sit at the same table with an American one night, an Italian another, or a Frenchman or Belgian or Portuguese. The majority of men present were distinguished men either in the Service or in some civil profession or business. Travel, science, art and literature, were all well represented.

IN THE OFFICERS' CLUB

Smoking was prohibited in the Officers' Club until a certain hour, and the Q.M.A.A.C. waitresses had no difficulty in seeing that the rule was kept by all ranks. At an earlier date, when a sergeant-major with men orderlies had charge of the waiting, discipline on this point was not so easily maintained. Any junior officer lighting up before the hour was promptly checked. But a sergeant-major found it difficult to take "disciplinary action" against an officer of General rank. One evening a very lofty general indeed, a visitor to the Mess, started a huge cigar at 8 o'clock. Smoking was not allowed until 8.20. The sergeant-major was a man of resource. Bringing in a ladder, he mounted to the Mess clock and solemnly set it on to 8.20. A General was smoking, therefore it must be 8.20.

As I have said, they fed us very well at the Mess. But of course we grumbled at the food and found one point of criticism in the fish. Montreuil being practically a seaside town, the fish was naturally not good, authority having transferred to this English colony in France the invariable tradition of British seaside resorts to send all the fresh fish away and consume the refuse. Our fish was always plaice, and it was often plaice that had known better days. One wag spoke of it as the "vintage plaice," professed to know that it had been "laid down" the year the war started, and that the "bins" would not be exhausted until the war ended.

But the plaice was never a really serious grievance. It gave opportunity, but not valid cause, to grumble, and discussion of it died away after an officer one night quoted mock heroically:

Ah, friend—had this indubitable fact
Haply occurred to poor Leonidas
How had he turned tail on Thermopulai!
It cannot be that even his few wits
Were addled to the point that, so advised,
Preposterous he had answered—"Cakes are prime,
Hearth-sides are snug, sleek dancing-girls have worth,
And yet for country's sake, to save our gods
Their temples, save our ancestors their tombs,
Save wife and child and home and liberty,—I
would chew sliced-salt-fish, bear snow—nay, starve
If need were—and by much prefer the choice!"

After dinner the routine was to go and look at the map before settling down again to work. Military Intelligence, in one of its rooms, kept up-to-date hour-by-hour a map of the fighting front, and after dinner we would crowd to this room to see the latest official news put up on the map and to hear the latest unofficial stories which embroidered the news. One evening, as a great advance on our part was marked up on the map, the clerk, moving the flag-pins, announced:

"They say the enemy cleared out so quickly that they left the hospitals behind, and the Australian corps has captured 50 German nurses. They report that they are looking well after them."

A titter went round the group of officers. It happened to be the night after the story had circulated—a story which President Wilson has since adopted among his family of anecdotes—that the Australians, having the Americans to co-operate with, had had to remonstrate with them for their undue rudeness to the Germans. The Australians had a reputation for being quite direct enough in their method of teaching the Boche not to be a Boche.

The titter, perhaps, had an injurious inference to some ears, for a General officer remarked, a little sternly:

"Gentlemen, the Australians are a gallant race. The German—er—ladies will be quite safe with them."

So, of course, it proved. It was fiction that any Colonial troops showed an undue sternness to prisoners. The average German knew that he was quite safe in the hands of any British unit—whether it was from Australia, Canada, or the Motherland.

The after-dinner peep at the map was a great finish to dinner. When the Armistice was signed officers were disconsolate for the loss of their ten minutes in the M.I. room. "I miss," said one, "our pleasant daily habit of advancing ten kilomètres on a front of fifty kilomètres."

No, life at G.H.Q. was sober and strenuous, but it was not dull or tedious. If a man has good work to do, lovely aspects of Nature to look upon, interesting company at his meals, he has all the real essentials of contentment; well, most of them.

Ladies at G.H.Q.? An almost accurate chapter might be written on this point on the lines adopted in that exhaustive and conscientious book on Iceland, which had a brief chapter:

The Snakes of Iceland.

There are no snakes in Iceland.

There were no ladies at G.H.Q., not at any rate in the sense that would be in the mind of the average inquirer. On the too rare occasions when I was able to get a leave from G.H.Q., or was sent over to London on a task, the civilians I encountered in London exhibited a considerable interest in the ladies that were thought to haunt G.H.Q.

This was by no manner of means an entirely or indeed a mainly feminine curiosity. Many people have an ineradicable idea that an Army on a campaign ravages the hearts of all the female population of the occupied territory, as well as drawing on the beauty of its own land to recruit charming camp followers. I can recall, on returning from a small war some time before 1914, attending a dinner-party in London and being tremendously flattered at the fact that as soon as the ladies went upstairs all the men (some of them very distinguished men) crowded round me in a spirit of inquiry. With all the resources at my disposal I framed in my mind a brief and vivid appreciation of the campaign. But—they did not want to know why the Turkish Army failed or the Serbian Army succeeded. Someone rather well known in London had got into a scrape in the course of the campaign, and there were some very scandalous details alleged. My eager inquirers wanted to know all those scandalous details, and were obviously disappointed to learn that there was no reasonable foundation for them, and at once lost all interest in the campaign. My "appreciation" had not the chance to be uttered.

Probably they concluded I was rather an unintelligent person not to have discovered all the horrid details. Certainly those to whom I told the truth about the ladies and G.H.Q. thought I was either very sly or very unobservant. Indeed one very hearty old gentleman, with a great passion for horrid details, patted me on the back publicly.

"That's right, that's right. I admire you for sticking to your friends. But of course we do not believe you."

Categorically, it is not a fact that "beautiful leaders of British society" constantly graced G.H.Q. with their presence. In the very early stages of the war some of the "Smart Set" considered it rather the thing to get over to the battlefields and make a week-end sensation of a glimpse at the Calvary of Civilisation. They usually got over through the influence of political friends, and most often by way of the Belgian section of the Front, which was not so sternly guarded as the British or French sections. Military authority discountenanced these visits—however "fashionable" and beautiful the visitors—and soon put a stop to them. After 1914, except nurses and Q.M.A.A.C.s it was very rare for a woman to enter British Army areas. Those few who did come had very definite business and were expected to attend very strictly to that business and then to move off.

There was a suspicion that some few, a very few, "workers" were in France not so much for work as because they found it amusing. These got no further than the Base ports as a rule, and were not officially encouraged. The vast majority of the women workers in France were there for patriotism's sake, attended strictly to their business, and had no time (or inclination, presumably) for frivolity.

All this is very disappointing, I am aware. But it is true. The life we lived at G.H.Q. was truly monastic. We never saw an English woman unless she were a nurse or Q.M.A.A.C. or some other uniformed fellow-officer or fellow-soldier.

THE PLACE GAMBETTA

Nor was there any idle local feminine society to take the thoughts of officers from the stern tasks of war. Montreuil was very, very prim and dull even for a small French provincial town. There may still be some people whose ideas of French social life are based on those quarters of Paris whose theatres, books, newspapers, restaurants, manners are shaped by the wishes (or fancied wishes) of the floating population of visitors and of a small section of idle and worthless French. But I fancy that in these days such people are few; and most people know that the average of French life is not at all like Montmartre or the Latin Quarter, which are less typical of France than, say, Piccadilly Circus is of England. For thorough straight-laced respectability there is nothing to beat a small French provincial town.

Montreuil was the most respectable place one could imagine before the war. It sheltered a small colony of artists in the summer, attracted by the wonderful panoramas from the ramparts; but they came to work, and did not bring with them what is supposed to be the atmosphere of the Latin Quarter. The local population was exceedingly decorous and rather inclined to be clerical in sympathy, for Montreuil was a great centre for schools.

During our occupation of the town as the home of G.H.Q. there might be noted occasionally the arrival from Paris, or elsewhere, of some gay young lady or couple of ladies who, having heard that the British Army had its headquarters there, had decided, from motives of patriotism, of camaraderie, or from less admirable motives, to come and enliven the dullness of the place. Departure would follow with ungallant promptitude. The same day, or the next, the lady would move away, with a gendarme to see that she did not miss her train.

The monastic severity of life at G.H.Q. relaxed a little, I think, when the immediate environs of Montreuil were passed. Then you had got out of the area of First Echelon G.H.Q. and were in that of the Second Echelon, which was largely made of subsidiary services not so directly concerned with the administration of the fighting Army. Life was a little less strenuous, and perhaps Aphrodite was not altogether neglected for Ares. Here conditions reflected the average attitude of the British Army administration in the matter of morals, which was practically that of British civilian life, with somewhat more precaution and guardianship but no grandmotherly supervision. The female personnel of the Army was very carefully safeguarded. The male personnel, if it were absolutely bent on it, could find opportunities for mischief in some of the Base towns. G.H.Q. itself—partly perhaps because of the necessity of extreme safeguards against espionage—was expected to lead a strictly single life; to conform to the perfect standard that was supposed to rule in the Provost Marshal's branch. That rigour, of course, was dictated not by an exceptional prudery in the P.M. authorities but by military convenience. Ordinarily, outside of G.H.Q. and the Provost Marshal's branch, there was a margin allowed for human error.

Paris Plage, the jolly beach at the mouth of the Canche near Montreuil, was for a long time "out-of-bounds" to all British troops. Paris Plage had, in pre-war days, rather a "Montmartre" reputation in Paris. It was the beach for the cheap tripper. It was the beach to which the hardworking bourgeois of the city who had to stick to his bureau during the summer sent his wife, and came down to see her on Sundays. It was also the beach for the Don Juan of modest means to visit with his temporary Juanita. Not this Paris reputation reacting on the traditional British hypocrisy caused the long-standing ban on Paris Plage, but practical sanitary reasons. It had not then a good reputation from the point of view of health. But as the size and the activities of G.H.Q. increased and it was necessary to find places for new departments near Montreuil, Paris Plage had to be utilised. After being subjected to a drastic sanitary inquisition it was thrown open to the troops and became the headquarters of several minor departments.

But of course the old gay life did not return. It was no longer a suburb of Montmartre. Still it preserved a certain air of rakishness. Going through there in a car one day with another staff officer we noticed a little shop in the windows of which were displayed very coquettishly two or three filmy articles of feminine dessous. A lightning glance through the door showed that there was quite a bevy of fair shop assistants—about three assistants to each item of merchandise. In the window there was this simple device, in English:

CHEQUES CASHED.

We dared not investigate further. A G.H.Q. car is so clearly recognisable as such that it could not stop outside, and the subterfuge of drawing up at the Directorate of Inkstands and making a reconnaissance on foot we felt to be infra dig. It was only possible to pass the shop slowly on the return journey, and to look out for it the next month when going that way again. It was still open, still bore its artless device. It was a little bit of the old life of Paris Plage that had escaped the shocks of war.

In very truth we were a dull lot from one point of view. Even the conversation at meals was ordinarily wanting in that type of anecdote which—as Walpole said when he was asked why it was rife at his table, where sat the greatest men of Europe, who should have had something better to talk about—is popular "because every man understands it." Perhaps the propriety of our conversation was partly due to the fact that there was nearly always a padre within earshot. Perhaps I may dare the explanation of the general absence of "sex interest" in our lives, that here were gathered together a band of men with very exacting and very important work to do, and that they simply had not time nor inclination to bother about what is usually an amusement of idle lives.

CHAPTER V.

THE MUNITIONS OF THE WAR.

The Shell shortage—When relief came—The dramatic Tanks—Bombs—Some ammunition figures—The ingenious inventor.

As soon as any subject is involved in political discussion the facts about it are apt to be distorted in the interests of some particular view. The "Shell shortage" in the early stages of the war has become in a sense a political issue; and that I do not intend to discuss. But some facts about munitions supply must be given—for that was the very pivot of the war—irrespective of what political case they help or harm.

The British Force at the outset of the war suffered from a shell and gun shortage as compared with its enemy, because it had been trained and equipped for a different type of warfare from that which actually came. It had very little high explosive shell, and what it had was rarely "high explosive" in the real sense of the term. The patient search for a foolproof fuse had been so successful that our H.E. shell was comparatively inoffensive when it reached the enemy's lines. It spluttered off rather than shattered off. All this was put right in time. But the difficulties which the Munitions Supply Department had to face at the outset were enormous. There were, considered in the lights of the needs of this war, practically no shells, no guns, and no machinery for making them. Essential material was lacking in many cases, and the only source of quick supply was Germany, which alone in the world had organised for war.

But all difficulties were overcome. How great the growth some comparative figures will show. The production of high explosive in 1914 was almost negligible. The year's supply would not keep the guns of 1918 going for a day. In 1915 we began to produce high explosive on a large scale, and in amounts which made the 1914 output seem contemptible, but still in quite inadequate quantities. In 1916 we had increased the 1915 amount sevenfold. In 1917 we had increased that 1916 amount fourfold. From March, 1915, to March, 1917, the increase was twenty-eight fold. Of machine-guns we made samples in 1914 and we began to manufacture quantities in 1915. In 1917 we made twenty times as many as in 1915. Of aeroplanes the figures mounted in steep flights. In 1916 we seemed to be producing vastly. In 1917 the rate of production for the first six months had increased fourfold as compared with the previous year, and another great acceleration was in progress.

In the end we were enormously superior to any other Army in the field in the matter of munitions. To the very day of the Armistice improvements in the quality and rate of productions were still going on in preparation for the Spring, 1919, campaign, which it was anticipated would end the war. The German threw up the sponge before then. If he had waited he would have been literally blown out of his trenches and his chief cities.

In one sense, of course, we never had enough, but if I were asked to name a date on which a serious shortage of munitions ceased I should say September 19th, 1915, on the eve of the battle of Loos. On that date, a year after Trench War began, word was passed around to the batteries of the British line in a phrase copied from the provision shops of London: "Ammunition is cheap to-day." Every gun-pit stocked up with shell. The gates of the dumps were opened and shell fairly poured out. Battery Commanders, who knew the days when one shell per gun per day was the limit allowed, saw with joy thousands of shells, and, as they began eagerly to fire them off, thousands more coming.

On the 23rd of September a regular bombardment of the whole German line facing the British line began. The artillery was undertaking the preliminary work of wire-cutting and parapet pounding. The 18-pounders with shrapnel, the howitzers with high explosive, started at dawn, and all through the day systematically smashed away at the German's defences. That went on for two more days. The fourth day we intensified our shell-fire. Along many sections of the Front the German wire was down, and the parapet of the German trench breached. The enemy increased his artillery fire, too, attacking our trenches and searching for our observing stations and batteries, but on the whole getting the worst of the artillery duel. On the morning of the 25th the final artillery duel began. It was the greatest artillery bombardment in history up to that date, though afterwards so eclipsed by the records of the Somme, the Ancre and of Messines as to be remembered as a mere splutter. But at the time it was vastly impressive.

The morning was dull but the flashes of guns were so continuous as to give a light which was almost unbroken. It flickered, but it never failed. The earth itself quivered and shook with the repeated shocks of the guns. The air became a tattered hunted thing, torn wisps of it blown hither and thither by the constant explosions.

The Battle of Loos did not give us the break-through we expected, but, in so far as my observation is worth anything, the reason was not lack of munitions. Loos showed that the task was a more complicated one than merely smashing down the front line of enemy trenches. "Trench War" was resumed, whilst the British Army prepared for the next phase opening in July, 1916, with the first Battle of the Somme. By then munitions supply had grown gigantically and in the mechanics of war we were far ahead of the Germans. This was not only in artillery but in infantry equipment and in our unique weapon the "Tank," which was the mechanical contrivance having the most decisive results on the issue of the war. These appeared in September, 1916, two years after "Trench War" had begun, and were ultimately destined to make that sort of war impossible, a task which the German poison gas had failed to accomplish.

As a race we are never consciously dramatic, or I would have imagined on that September 1916 morning that the arrival of the Tanks on the Somme front had been carefully timed and stage-managed. The morning was dull and misty. Over the seared and terrible land little wisps of fog rose and fell. All likeness to our gentle mother earth had been battered out of the fields, which were rubbish-heaps of churned-up débris of bodies, dust, weapons—hideously pock-marked by the eruption of the shells. Where had been villages were dirtier patches of desolation. Where had been woods, groups of splintered stumps. It was an abomination of desolation, like as when the earth was first formed out of the void. In the midst of this desolation out of the mist came, crawling uncouthly, the Tanks, like prehistoric saurians.

The German forces were obviously frightened by the Tanks, which climbed over their trenches, and impervious to rifle bullets, smashed up machine-gun emplacements and redoubts. But that Tank of 1916 was nothing like the perfected machine of 1918. Its rear steering wheel was a weak-spot liable to be shot away. Its pace was too slow for it to keep up with charging infantry. No real tactics had been evolved for its use.

But, such as it was, that Tank at first brought alarm to more than the enemy. In going to and from the battle front it "got the wind up" many a British dug-out. Here is an artillery officer's yarn of the first "Tank night":

"Our 'Mess' was a roofed-over shell-hole a mile or so in front of Martinpuich. The roof would keep out shrapnel bits but was no use against a direct hit from a shell. I was Orderly Dog for the night and it was my business to take action, when, outside, a strange spluttering, growling, scratching, spitting sound broke into the steady barking of the guns. It was like a thousand cats, a hundred dogs, and a sea-sick elephant or two scrambling and squabbling together in a dust-hole. I went to investigate. A Tank wandering home was within ten yards of our Mess, heading straight for it. With all the insouciance I could command at such a crisis I begged the Tank to stop; urged that our roof was designed to keep out splinters only and was neither shell-proof nor Tank-proof; pointed out that if it persisted in its course seven artillery officers, some of whom had wives and children, and all of whom had mothers, would be pulped. Then I became calmer and told the Tank that there was some wine in the Mess and even some whisky and soda, if the Tank would now stop and have a drink. Fortunately a Tank is a slow mover and my cooler arguments had effect by the time it had got within five yards of our roof-tree. Then it backed water and we were safe. The Tank is a noble animal, but it adds a little to the anxieties of life underground."

THE FOSSE

"The Tank" was the great mechanical find of the war, and it was an all-British find. High authority had many fine name-proposals for the useful monsters, but Tommy took the matter into his own hands and coined the word "Tank," and "Tank" it remained. Those who are interested in matters of language may note that the French do not use the word "Tank" but describe a "Tank" as a char d'assaut, which is accurate, but has a weak look. It is an illustration of their jealous and admirable care of their language. They will not allow foreign words to intrude if that can be avoided. We, on the other hand, are quite careless about our language. The orders of our Army in France were bespattered with French words and phrases for which there were quite good English equivalents. (Gare régulatrice for "distributing station" is one of the many scores of cases in point.) It is a pity that we are so careless in regard to our mother tongue. I made an effort once to persuade G.H.Q. that British Army orders and instructions should be put out in English without any foreign admixture, but met with little sympathy. The intrusion of French words was not so bad, but German words had an almost equal degree of hospitality.

But to return to our munitions. The hand bomb was a weapon which by 1914 we had allowed to fall out of use. The British Grenadiers no longer threw grenades. But Trench War brought back the bomb as a weapon, and our bomb was soon better than the German bomb. At the first Somme battle (1916) we showed a definite superiority in bomb supply and bomb use. This development was altogether in our favour. The bomb—beastly weapon as it is, and beastly as are the wounds it inflicts—lends its favour to the quicker brain, the prompter courage, the keener leadership. The football field and the cricket green both give a good foundation for the murderous art of bombing. As soon as we had the bombs our bombing superiority grew with every day.

An instance to illustrate bombing: For the taking of the village of Contalmaison (1916) a preliminary task was the capture of Horse Shoe trench. The attack on this was prospering when it was held up at a critical point by the unmasking of a German machine gun on our right flank. To the fire of this gun we were fully exposed, and its effect was murderous. A young cricketer rose to the occasion. Single-handed he rushed the gun with a bag of bombs, got to his distance and destroyed it with a couple of "hot returns from the outfield."

In using ammunition the B.E.F. put up some startling records. On August 8th, 1918, when our big final thrust began there were used 15,598 tons in a single day. On September 29th, 1918, there were used 23,706 tons. Here are some other big figures:

In the depôts in France we kept a reserve of 258,000 tons of ammunition, and the issues in a normal month ran to about that figure though it varied a good deal month by month. Thus the average expenditure during the last months of 1918 was: May, 5,478 tons daily; June, 4,748 tons daily; July, 5,683 tons daily; August, 9,046 tons daily; September, 8,576 tons daily; October, 4,748 tons daily; November, 3,158 tons daily. On November 11th, the last day of the war, we used 233 tons of ammunition.

Different varieties of ammunition had widely different rates of use. The gigantic 15-inch howitzer on some days did not fire a single round. It was a "big day" when it fired fifty rounds. It was just as well that it was not a gun which indulged in thousands of rounds, for a ten-ton broad-gauge railway truck would only take twelve rounds for it. The 18-pounder field guns would shoot 100,000 rounds on a normal day, and on a heavy day would use 200,000 rounds. The cost of ammunition was, in a time of heavy fighting, up to £3,000,000 per day.

A heavy item in munitions was for defence against poison gas and for our own poison gas service. We entered with extreme reluctance into the ghastly business, but once we started we soon made the German sorry that he had brought that element into the war. Our gases were more potent and more plentiful than his. For lack of material he could not give his men perfect gas protectors, while to our men we could and did.

The last loathsome trick of the enemy in this direction was the introduction of mustard gas, a powerful corrosive which was discharged from shells. The use of mustard gas by the enemy raised a number of problems for Supplies as apart from the Medical Staffs. The disinfection with chloride of lime of ground contaminated with the gas, a prompt change of clothing and bath treatment for men affected, proved efficacious in dealing with mustard gas. There was, too, safety in protective overalls of oilskin. Mustard gas affected the Veterinary Service heavily, there being many casualties to horses and mules through passing over ground infected with the gas.

The inventive spirit was naturally strong in the Army, and some of the most useful of the new ideas in the way of munitions or equipment came from men in the Field. These ideas were tested in the Army workshops, and occasionally there was a certain amount of waste owing to the same idea, or nearly the same idea, being experimented with simultaneously in more than one Army. So an Army Order from Home recalled the King's Regulation that War Office approval must be obtained before experimental work was done in regard to any invention. But this, it was urged from G.H.Q., would act prejudicially to the interests of the Force in France, since many very useful inventions regarding stores and material had come from officers and men of the Force and it was not in the best interests of the public to put any obstacles in the way of future inventions. This was recognised, and a subsequent Army Order gave authority to the Commander-in-Chief of any Expeditionary Force to authorise trials of inventions; but precautions were taken in regard to duplication and overlapping.

There were not in the Field so many foolish inventors as at Home. No such merry idea came to G.H.Q. as that anti-submarine device with which the Admiralty was plagued—a liquid air shell which on being exploded anywhere in the vicinity of a submarine formed an extensive iceberg (through the lowering of the surrounding temperature by a release of the liquid air from pressure). On this iceberg the submarine would be brought to the surface. The next step would be easy: open with an oyster knife, sprinkle with pepper and salt and a dash of lemon juice, and serve.

The B.E.F. had never anything quite so naive as that. Its limit was the inventor who claimed to be able to project an X-ray from an electric battery so that it would kill anything within 1,000 yards. This invention would have been a great war-stopper. It would have been only necessary to set up a sufficient number of the projectors along our Front, switch on the current and march on to Berlin. It was offered at a time when inventions were rather the fashion, and it needed courage to scoff at even the most curious notion. So it actually got to the stage of a trial with a High Authority present. The inventor set up his projector; an animal was let loose within its deadly range and, surely enough, dropped dead. Unfortunately for the inventor a medical scoffer subjected the animal to a post mortem examination and found that it had evidently resolved on suicide, for it had taken a large dose of strychnine. This discouraged further trials of the X-ray device.

The inventor with a "wireless" device for exploding enemy magazines also cropped up. You projected a wireless ray and it blew up a dump. This invention could be very convincingly demonstrated within your own lines. All that was necessary was to provide in the dump a certain amount of loose explosive, a fulminate, and a receiver tuned to receive your wireless message. We were not on sufficiently good terms with the Germans to persuade them to arrange their ammunition depôts in this way for our convenience.

There was a close liaison kept up between the B.E.F. and the Ministry of Munitions. When Mr. Winston Churchill was Minister of Munitions he was over in France so frequently that a small château was kept up for him at G.H.Q. He was wont to come into the Officers' Club for his meals. There was always an air about him that he would have liked to be in the jack-boots of his famous ancestor and give the world a spectacle of another Marlborough winning victories in Flanders.

CHAPTER VI.

THE MEDICAL SERVICES.

The magic-workers of the war—Fighting the Germans—Concerning the Victorian primness of conversation and the present popularity of "v.d." as a theme for small talk—The Army and "v.d."—The etiquette of hospitals and the ways of matrons—The war against Trench Feet—Mustard gas in 1918.

Probably more than half the men at G.H.Q. had been "crocked" at one time or another during the campaign, from wounds or one of those fevers of the battlefield born of mud and filth and fatigue. Some came to work on the Staff whilst still under medical treatment, and there was a local hospital at Montreuil which was a boon to those out-patients needing massage for their scars or quinine for their fevers.

Apart from the doctors of this hospital only the very big men of the medical services appeared ever at G.H.Q. It was a pleasure not easily won to persuade them to talk over their work. But when they did talk, what wonders they had to tell of!

A BY-WAY

Socrates in prison, when the fetters were taken off his legs, as he rubbed them to make the blood run freely again, speculated on how pleasure always followed pain, so that the two seemed to be linked together by some unbreakable bond. One would like to hear Socrates to-day, as his limb, injured in Flanders, was rubbed back to usefulness, talking to his masseur on the good that will follow the evil of the Great War as surely as if the two had been linked together and one was the consequence of the other. Matter for a fine homily there from the stubborn old hero with the divinely clear mind!

Those optimists who thought that a new heaven and a new earth would come at the end of the war, and that even all politicians would become sincere, alert, and vigorous in the public service, were perhaps not reasonable and may be disappointed in some measure; but no one can observe closely the phenomena of the war without being sure that from its sacrifices and lessons much good will come. The dreadful fire that had to be kindled to burn out the cancer of Germanism burned out evil too in the nations that were the instruments of vengeance. Peoples who went into war iron will come out steel ultimately; for the war, as well as being preservative, will prove regenerative.

There is no better proof of this than in the tale of our campaigns against the germs, those pitiless enemies who are always attacking human content and happiness. It was a wonderful part of the war, that defensive and offensive against Disease, with its trench systems which hold up foes whom we cannot destroy with our present weapons; its Intelligence Department, spying with a thousand microscopes into the designs and dispositions of the enemy; its clever diplomatic service, always raising up allies in our blood against germ invasion; its long illustrious roll of heroes who have given up life or health to hold positions against odds or to go out on forlorn hopes.

In this the benefits springing out from the Great War show splendid and palpable. In the process of beating the Germans we made such great advances in the war against the germs that we greet peace as a definitely healthier people, organised to save, in a generation or two, for service in this world, more than the total of all those who went to a Higher Service from the fields of France and Belgium.

Because the war has given a sounder national discipline, because it has cleared so many obstacles from the path of medical organisation, the world's death-rate, according to sound calculations, will in future years show a substantial decrease. The toll taken by the Germans will be more than made up by the lives saved from the germs. The British Medical Service, following in the path of the victorious British Army, and wielding an authority that it never knew before, carried on a war against disease in Europe, Asia, and Africa that is now saving thousands of lives, and will save millions in the ultimate result. Enteric, cholera, dysentery, scurvy, small-pox, beri-beri, malaria, phthisis were fought successfully. Even that national British disease, rheumatism, was pushed back from some of its trenches and compelled to surrender not a few of its ridges.

Fascinating as a fairy tale, absorbing as a good detective story, stimulating as the records of a stubborn battle, will be the record of British medical work in the Great War when it comes to be written. It will not be a story merely of drains and drugs and dressings, but also of kindly amulets and beneficent golden fishes; of wicked germs who chalk their throats to deceive with soft talk little red corpuscles; of fairy princes who destroy wicked enchantments with spells from tiny glass tubes. Those attentive gentlemen experimenting with neck ribbons smeared with potent charms have not come to their second childhood; they are on the track of the perfect cimicifuge which will keep lice off the body and, keeping off lice, will reduce the range of typhus and other diseases. A great tank of little live fish sent out to a malaria Front does not mean that we are relapsing into the old Chinese school of medicine (which prescribed a live mouse to be swallowed whole as a remedy for one complaint), but that these little fish love to eat the eggs of the anopheles mosquito, which spreads malaria. It lays its eggs in ponds; the fish eat the eggs; the eggs don't hatch; the mosquitoes don't come; and there is less malaria.

If your mind is more attracted by detective stories than by fairy tales, turn to a bacteriological laboratory and watch the tracking down of the Hidden Hand that is responsible for odious diseases; for example, that one known popularly as spotted fever, a very deadly disease of over-crowding. A cunning criminal is the spotted fever germ, and he has not yet been quite fully identified and convicted. A victim of spotted fever has in his throat and spinal fluid the causative germ; but this germ hides behind a smoke cloud of other germs and must be placed quite definitely before it can be destroyed. It was found that it is a germ shaped like a double bean, that it is to be distinguished from other germs of the same shape by the fact that its hide is impervious to a certain stain which those other germs will absorb. It was further found that this spotted fever germ would not increase and multiply at a warmth of 23 degrees C., whilst otherwise similar germs would. There certain knowledge stopped for a time. Other double-bean, non-staining, non-growing at 23 degrees C. germs existed, among whom the real criminal lived and hid. Finally, four bad brother germs were found and are now being dealt with, and the disease is no longer a serious menace.

The divine purpose for good that runs stubbornly through life and has made it impossible for the murderous German plans to thrive in spite of all our neglects and stupidities, crops up insistently in the story of the British medical campaign in this war. Thus, chlorine gas came into the field first as the poison gas of the Germans; it remained in the field on the British side chiefly as a means for purifying water.

One interesting result of the war which we noticed at G.H.Q. was the abandonment of the Early Victorian primness in conversation in England. Soldiers going home on leave noticed it from 1916 onwards; and on the balance of the evidence I do not think they were at all responsible for it. They would go away from Boulogne, after an extra careful bath and the putting on of a clean tunic, with a steady resolution to put away from their thoughts and their tongues all the coarseness of the camp; and find themselves at their first dinner party in England tackled by some young lady in her teens on the subject of lice; or by some matron not yet in the thirties on the subject of venereal disease at the Front. They would come back often with a distinct feeling of shame-shock, to welcome the comparative reticence of Mess conversation.

It was my duty once to see the representative of an organisation that wished to have lectures delivered to all the soldiers on the subject of "v.d." To my surprise the representative proved to be a lady—and a young and attractive lady at that. She plunged into her subject without the least trace of embarrassment. She wanted lectures, with pictures, in every recreation hut of the B.E.F., France, and was firm to brush away the objection that "the men might not like it," and scornful of the reservation that if the lectures were permitted they were not to be "parade lectures," i.e., the men were not to be compelled to attend.

Finally, discovering that though the lady wanted "pictures" she had not the pictures but expected the Army to supply them, I took refuge in a subterfuge. "Very sorry, very sorry indeed, but there is no Vote out of which we can get the pictures."

But the lady was insistent. She knew that there were cinematographs provided for the soldiers.

"Oh, but that is not my department. That is Amusements."

"Very well," she said firmly. "I'll see Amusements."

And she went away to convince some other Staff Officer that universal lectures on v.d., with pictures, would be an appreciated Amusement.

I do not know where the idea sprang from that v.d. was very common in the Army. So far as my observation went, and from what inquiries I made of medical officers, the opposite was the case. Among the officers with whom I came into touch during the campaign—many hundreds in the aggregate—I only heard of one case. Among the men of my battery before I was on the Staff I never heard of one case during 18 months of regimental life.

The Army's standard of health in this respect was better than that of the average of the civilian population. There were some tragic outbreaks—one in Cairo, another (of much less seriousness) with Amiens as its focus—but on an average the record was good.

British ideas did not favour the degrees of regulation and interference in this matter that other countries tolerate. But the soldier had some safeguards which the civilian had not. For instance it was the duty of the Assistant Provost Marshal of a Division, whenever a man reported sick from v.d., to go to the hospital, interview the patient and try to find out the fons et origo. If his mission were successful the person responsible was promptly expelled from the Army area.

One of the Dominion Corps adopted the method of advising prophylactic precautions (and supplying the means of prophylaxis). The British Army on a whole did not follow that course, though in the later stages of the campaign the means of prophylaxis were available if applied for.

But enough on that point. It was the surgical rather than the medical side of the R.A.M.C. that interested G.H.Q. So many had "taken a knock" and put in a spell at a hospital. Opinion was practically unanimous that "Hospital" was a place of real human sympathy as well as devoted skill, and that "sister" was the best pattern of womankind.