Two aeroplanes came over today and dropped a couple of bombs in the garden next door — 

 total casualties, one bird killed by flying glass. It is remarkable how much ammunition 

 must be expended to get any result. The other day they gave us 2,000 shells, any 

 amount of machine gun and rifle fire and lots of bombs and other horrors for several 

 hours and the casualties were two killed and half a dozen wounded on our section. I am 

 glad to say we gave them two shells to their one and knocked them about a good deal. 

 We are gaining on them in ammunition and men and it seems to me that we only need 

 inflexible determination for say two years more to finish them off for keeps." 



"You may think from what our papers say that we are making a muddle of things, 

 and no doubt many mistakes have been made by those in high places, but I question if 

 any other nation could have done what we have done in the time. I am sure Germany 

 could not. As to the organization, it is wonderful. My brigade, of which I am 

 a Staff Officer, was moving lately — say 4,500 men and 300 horses and waggons. 

 We halted each night in a new place and within an hour every man had a hot 

 meal, had received or posted his letters, and even bought postal orders — the office 

 was in full swing with a typewriter clicking away and telegrams and motor 

 cyclists coming and going. Next morning shortly after dawn and a hot breakfast, the 

 whole outfit would be marching again. Men who had fallen sick in the night would be 

 flying in motor ambulances to base or field hospitals, lame horses would be picked up 

 by the Mobile Veterinary Section, and the vouchers for the payment of billeting money 

 for the whole 4,500 men and 400 horses in perhaps 150 different billets properly made out 

 and -certified would be in the hands of the village 'Maire.' If you remember that — 

 Brigades have been recruited, trained, equipped and organised so that they can move like 

 this in a foreign country all in eighteen months you can see that we have worked miracles. 

 And remember that three hot meals a day have got to come from somewhere every day 

 and they never fail to come. All the stuff comes across the Channel, even our coal, which 

 is served out to us every day even on the move. And eighteen months ago there were 

 not — Brigades that could move and fight in the British Army. There is nothing 

 wrong with our organization, but we are fighting the best professional soldiers in the 

 world, and even if the war lasts ten years we shall still be amateurs fighting professionals. 

 You cannot train civilians like me to their pitch of efficiency in a year or so, but every 

 month the war lasts reduces the number of their professionals and brings us nearer the 

 same level of quality. Already we are nearing them, soon we shall dominate them. 



"The spirit of our men is grand. The other night one of our men, wounded in 

 both arms, was pulled off the top of the parapet which he was climbing in order 'to get 

 at the chap that did it.' I suppose he was going to bite him, as he could not carry a 

 rifle. All they hope for is that the enemy will come out of his holes so that they can 

 get at him." 



"The German methods are, of course, despicable and we are much handicapped 

 by them. For instance this town, which is quite large, and of which you would know the 

 the name quite well, is within easy range and is full of French women and children. 

 Whenever we have given the Huns a specially hot time they turn their guns on this 

 town. It has no military effect whatever beyond this, that, as we know they will kill 

 women and children if we bombard them hotly, it rather cools our ardour. It is all of a 

 piece with their favourite game of advancing behind a screen of women, driven forward 

 by their bayonets. Nothing that you have ever read about the German atrocities is 

 exaggerated. If some particular act is not true you may be certain that another of 

 equal barbarism has been perpetrated. It is difficult to imagine anything worse than 

 spitting babies and carrying them alive on their bayonets over their shoulders, and we 

 know they have done this. Again and again in the advance from the Aisne it was found 

 that in houses occupied by German officers a favourite habit was to open the grand 

 piano and use it as a closet, filling it with human ordure. This is a small thing but it shows 

 the 'mark of the beast'." 



217 



