In the second week in February, at a dinner in St. Omer, a member of the French Mission at British Headquarters told me that eighty-seven French general officers had been "relieved of their command" since the commencement of the war. These generals were "sent down" for incompetency, evidenced in various ways, to command the troops under them. The extremely small number of British generals who had been "replaced" stood out in very sharp contrast to this total, with which fact should be remembered the complete difference as to policy with reference to such replacements between the French and British War Office methods.
Early in February, the 1st Cavalry Division staff was blessed with the arrival of Major Desmond Fitzgerald (11th Hussars), who took Major Hambro's place as G.S.O. 2.
The total tally of British casualties was announced during the first week in the month as 104,000, having exceeded, in less than six months of warfare, the numerical strength of the original British Expeditionary Force.
A day "in front," with the engineers, mapping out new trenches and reserve positions, showed to how great an extent modern gun-fire had changed military theory.
Before the War, a trench line was sought in a position that commanded a good "field of fire," i.e., that had in front of it as much open ground as possible.
This war had taught that the most important item in the selection of a trench position was the extent to which the line could be hidden from the enemy gunners. The space commanded by the occupants of the trench and the nature of the terrain were secondary to the cardinal point of keeping the trenches well out of sight of enemy observers.
Thus engineers might, years ago, select a hilltop as a trench position, the line commanding the receding slope to the valley below. After the experience of the greatest of all wars, they would preferably place it fifty yards behind the summit. More than fifty yards of "field of fire" was desirable, but not absolutely necessary. A fifty-yard space could be so covered with wire entanglements as sufficiently to delay an attacking enemy. Deep, narrow trenches with traverses to restrict the area of damage from shells bursting in the actual trench, and to protect from enfilade fire, were demanded by the newer conditions, but great care had to be taken that they should not be constructed in ground of so soft a nature that howitzer fire could too easily cave in the trench sides.
We found it possible to select a trench line that could be well concealed, which, if taken by the enemy, would be under perfect observation from our own gunners and by them easily rendered untenable for the Huns.
That the British were clever in this work of placing trenches in invisible positions was proven by the following report of an interview in Courtrai with a wounded German officer, whose regiment had been badly handled when attacking an English position in the Ypres Salient:—
"Our artillery cannonaded incessantly the enemy trench which our company was to storm—we could see it in the distance. Towards evening we were ordered to advance. We marched forward without taking cover, confident enough, because not a shot came from the British trench. We thought it had been abandoned after the terrible bombardment to which it had been subjected all day long. To make things quite safe, when we were 200 metres from the trench our mitrailleuses were brought into action and we gave the silent enemy another good peppering. Still there is no reply. The place must certainly be empty. Shouting 'Hurrah,' we rush forward to seize it, but we have not gone more than 100 metres before our whole front rank is stricken down by a volley from a point much nearer than the trench we had been shelling, and in addition to this terrible infantry fire the British quick-firing guns are brought into play, and simply mow our men down. Six times we reform to continue our assault; six times we are knocked to pieces before we can get going. At last such officers as are left realise that there is nothing to be done, and we retreat to our original position.
"This is how the English work it. The entrenchment, visible from afar, which we had bombarded, was not the spot where their troops were to be found. They were stationed in small subsidiary trenches in front of the principal trench, with which they were connected by means of narrow passages. The little advance trenches were concealed to perfection, and the troops sheltered beneath sheets of metal on which our German bullets ricocheted. So we had been shelling an unoccupied trench and had done no damage to the place where the enemy actually was hidden. Hence it is not surprising that our 'assault' should have proved to be—for us—a veritable massacre."
Careful study of German methods of counter-attack were productive of many an idea.
The Hun counter-attacks were delivered immediately after the loss of a position—as successful counter-attacks must be.
A trench which was thought a good defensive one by its occupants was sometimes attacked by the Germans, taken, and immediately transformed into a good defensive trench from the other point of view. The way in which the German first line of attack was followed by a second line, bearing shovels, barbed wire, bombs, and grenades, and the manner in which this second line was put to work, showed that the brain conducting operations was close at hand, if not actually on the spot.
The planning and carrying out of some of these small attacks were worthy of great praise. Our troops soon caught the idea and put it into practice with increasingly beneficial results.
On Sunday, February 21st, the 2nd Cavalry Division were in the trenches in the Ypres Salient. The Huns exploded a mine in front of Zillebeke and took sixty yards of trenches that were occupied by the 16th Lancers. A counter-attack, delayed a bit, was launched unsuccessfully, and cost the cavalry four officers killed, one died of wounds, one missing (thought sure to be killed), and four wounded—ten officers in all, and about fifty per cent. of the men engaged.
The Canadian Division arrived in France in mid-February—a splendid lot of men.
Trench-mortars and bombs of various sorts put in an appearance and classes were held daily to accustom the men to the new types of trench weapons. A 3·7 affair of gas-pipe, throwing a 4½-pound projectile, was the most prevalent mortar. Prematures and accidents of all kinds accompanied its introduction, and more than one good man was killed before the troops learned the intricacies of the bombs.
General Foch was at Cassel with his Headquarters. Dinner in Cassel was always productive of a talk on instructive and entertaining subjects. The average French Staff officer was wonderfully "keen on his job."
The French system of espionage was by no means to be despised. The reports from their "agents" were astonishingly accurate.
That Staff work should be the subject of many an after-dinner chat was but natural. The French view of the difference between French and British Staff work, compiled from many a conversation with officers of all ranks, I understood to be generally as follows:—
British Staff work could not fairly be compared to French Staff work, because of the lack of opportunity accorded the British Army, before the War, to handle large bodies of troops. Furthermore, the English Army contained many officers who entered the Army as something in the nature of a pastime rather than a serious profession. Some of these officers even went through the Staff School, though lacking that devoted concentration on their profession as a life-work, which characterised their French prototypes. Very few officers entered the French Army and qualified for staff positions who did not look upon a military career in a very serious light. French Staff officers gained their steps by force of sheer merit and close application to their work.
Nothing else counted, they said. Not a big staff, but one that was efficient beyond all question, was the French aim.
The British soldier, I found, was in most instances frankly conceded to be the best war material in the field—friend or foe. That the British leaders often bungled was openly alleged, but by no means always proven in argument, at least, to my satisfaction.
A failure to arrange support, a badly planned attack, bad Staff work here and there, were quoted in more than one instance.
"It is the soldier who suffers,"