Land & Water 
July 
I I. 
I918 
western part of which is known as the Bois de Vaire ; the 
eastem prolongation as the Bois de Hamel. This wood is 
not only a formidable obstacle, but also stands above the 
country immediately to the west of it, so that there was 
complete observation by the enemy over the Australian 
advance. 
Two tactical features appeared in the action. The first 
was the very heavy bombardment of the ruins of Hamel 
from the air immediately before the infantry attacked. The 
second was the great use made of tanks, which crushed the 
machine-gun posts and everywhere cleared the enemy line. 
The only place where the Gennan resistance was well main- 
tained was the extreme right, south of the wood, and here 
the rally was due to the fact that the tanks came on marshy 
ground and were for a moment checked, liut the check 
did not last long. The marshy ground was circum\'ented, 
and this part of the line went with the rest. 
The operations were conducted by Lieutenant-General 
Monash, a Jewish officer, whose promotion has recently been 
noticed in the Press, and their complete success was 
emphasised by a special telegram sent from General Head- 
quarters by the Field-Marshal to the General in Command 
of the Fourth Army. 
The American contingent appears to have acted in the 
centre against the Bois de Vaire especially. The German 
troops defeated here consisted of three divisions — the 13th, 
recruited from the Rhine, and recently come into this part 
of the line from Lens ; the 43rd ; and the 77th. Of these, 
it was the last which seems to have made the best resistance. 
The Delta of the Piave 
By the night of last Saturday, July 6th, the Delta of the 
Piave had been completely cleared of enemy troops, and 
the Italians stood everj'wliere upon the right bank of the 
main stream called the New Paive, which is the eastern 
boundary of the delta. • 
This operation is very interesting. It shows, in the first 
place, that the enemy resistance under conditions very 
favourable for the defence is insufficient, and that under 
present circumstances our Allies can advance if they choose 
upon pretty well any sector. The arguments against a 
further advance beyond the Piave — or, at any rate, an 
immediate one — are well known. Italian communications 
are always threatened from the north — that is, from the 
mountains— and until the balance of forces has changed 
more than we have hitherto been able to change it, an advance 
eastward would be perilous, but the power to make such 
advance is clear from this Italian success on the most difficult 
of all grounds. 
M^ICE 
Adri^' 
It cannot be pleaded that the enemy voluntarily abandoned 
the delta, for if that had been his plan he would have effected 
the evacuation on June 23rd during the general movement 
of retreat which he completed on that day. On the contrary, 
he has clung to the delta with great tenacity. It was part 
of his original line, and was occupied after Caporetto. The 
reason for his occupation of it, and for his determination 
to retain it, is obvious. The delta, with its numerous canals 
and thickets, marshes, and narrow paths, is the chief obstacle 
on the whole Piave line, and whichever of the two opponents 
holds that obstacle is in a position to advance further. It is true 
that the country beyond the river is also a country of lagoons 
and marshes. Nevertheless, whoever holds the delta has a solid 
position in flank of the lineopposed to him. The Austrians never 
meant to give it up. . They have been fairly driven out of it. 
There arc certain subsidiary advantages attaching to the 
movement. For instance, it puts the arsenal at Venice out of 
effective long-distance range. At their nearest point the enemy 
were within 20,000 yards of the arsenal. They are now at 
their nearest point more than 30,000 yards away. It has also 
the moral advantage of increasing the military value of the 
Italian forces, for it is a conspicuous and clean success. 
The troops which the enemy used in these operations were 
mainly Bosnian, good material and very tenacious, largely 
Mohammedan in recruitment. The success is all the greater. 
We should note that it has been largely due to the excellence 
of the Italian artillery work. 
Recruitment 
THERE is a danger lest in these latter phases of the war 
the problem of recruitment should be misunderstood, 
or at any rate mishandled. ^ If it is mishandled, the con- 
sequences may be very serious. For when the whole ener- 
gies of a nation are mobilised for war, the disturbance of 
certain key points in the national system may be disastrous. 
Let us consider the first principles of the matter. 
Other things being equal, armies in the field depend for their 
success upon numbers. Their wastage is rapid. The re- 
placing of that wastage is called recruitment. The word 
recruitment means nothing else but the re-growth of tissue. 
The term is also extended to mean the addition of so many 
men, as not only makes good wastage, but actually increases 
the total numbers of fighting men. 
Recruitment is, therefore, the great anxiety, the permanent 
demand, of the soldier in conducting his affairs. The com- 
mander in tlie field is perpetually pressed for men. He is 
perpetually saying to himself : " If only I had had that extra 
number, I should have brought it off." He is perpetually 
receiving a stream of inquiries as to recruitment from his 
subordinates. His attitude towards recruitment proper, that 
is the mere feeding of the wasteful machine he controls, is 
like that of the under-paid man towards money. He must 
have it. He will do ;mything to have it ; and recruitment 
thus fills a greater part in the mind of the higher command, 
especially during a long and wasteful war, than perhaps 
any other of the many, things with which that mind is 
occupied. 
To illustrate how strong this motive is, let me quote from 
memory two sentences, each illustrating how it effected the 
mind of Napoleon, perhaps the clearest and sanest mind 
that ever dealt with war, and the one the least likely to judge a 
whole national system by exaggerating its purely military side. 
The first sentence concerns the Napoleonic War in Spain. 
It was written by one closely concerned with the conduct of 
the campaign, and he criticises the Emperor in terms such 
as these : "He was perpetually insisting upon the battalions 
being at full strength. He laid it down as a principle, and 
he lost his temper, and would not discuss the matter when the 
difficulties of recruitment were presented to him." 
The other sentence is the well-known reply of Napoleon 
when he was asked by a subordinate for men in the last of 
his campaigns : "Does he think I can make them ? " 
Here you have chance examples — any number might be 
chosen from the period of the great Revolutionary Wars — 
of the way in which the necessity for recruitment carries the 
military commander away, and makes him forget national 
necessities and even arithmetical limitations. It has led even 
the greatest commanders to employ at the end of a campaign 
human material so poor in value, that the more they put in 
the weaker they got. This passionate necessity (if I may so 
call it) for recruitment ; this sort of hunger which the army 
has for men, marks the whole of military history, and in 
prolonged and difficult wars it is a \-ery important though a 
little understood factor in victory and defeat. Great cam- 
paigns decisive of tlie fortunes of the world have sometimes 
been lost through insufficient recruitment, and they are 
always being held up as examples. The Second Punic War 
is perhaps the most obvious. But it is also true that a cam- 
paign may be lost, and sometimes has been lost, by an 
injudicious exaggeration of recruitment ; by what may be 
called "blind" recruitment. 
