December 19, 191 8 
LAND & WATER 
II 
and measuring the distance which still separated the enemy 
trenches from the Cathedral or the Post Office. It was a 
lamentable example of the inability of your electioneer 
to understand important things. It was in the middle of 
March, 1916, that the Battle of Verdun was definitely won, 
precisely as the Battle of Ypres had been won, by the proved 
inability of the offensive, with its existing methods, breaking 
down the defensive of an equal 
opponent. The struggle, continu- 
ing through April and May into 
June, did no more than further 
emphasise the strategic blunder 
of the enemy. I say " it did no 
more. ' ' This is not quite accurate. 
It did put a heavy strain upon the 
numerical strength of the French, 
for though their loss was far less 
than the German loss, their 
numbers were less than the Ger- 
man numbers. 
During this Battle of Verdun, 
however, two things had happened 
each of very high consequence. 
The first was the completion of 
the spontaneous, rapid, and ex- 
traordinary British armament ; 
the second was the development 
in the French Army of what they 
call a " roulement," that is a 
" passing through the mill " of 
many divisions. 
The first and most important 
of these two novel features must 
detain us for a moment. 
Britain had entered the war a 
commercial nation, jx)ssessing a 
small, excellent professional amly. 
The task jwas presented to this 
country of producing in some 
fashion, and in time a very large 
army indeed. This task was 
parformed with a skill at which history will marvel. The 
idea of conscription would have been intolerable tp the 
country in the first months of the struggle, and it was the 
part of foUy to urge it before its time. Need I add that it 
was urged by fools most eagerly ? A voluntary effort upon 
a scale hitherto unknown in the case of any great nation 
sufficed to lay the ^foundations, and only when men had thus 
become familiar with the business 
of arms was conscription imposed 
after so large a proportion of the 
people were already in train- 
ing. The transition in its various 
steps was feasible and even 
easy. 
More remarkable perhaps thar 
the political skill which governed 
and controlled such a revolution 
was the success of the soldiers in 
finding instructors for the new 
armies. 
From a few thousands, from an 
expeditionary force, of four and 
then six divisions, there was 
produced within two years a body 
of two million men. Such a thing 
has nevei' been done before in the 
history of the world and probably 
will never be done again. Some- 
thing of the sort has been done 
by amateurs against amateurs, 
but nothing has ever been done 
of the sort in alliance with great 
conscript armies and in opposition 
to a great conscript army. 
There is a test point which I 
have often quoted in these col- 
umns, especially in articles written 
about two years ago, and which I 
may here profitably recall. Heavy- 
artillery is the most delicate of all 
arms. It has always been thought 
to require the longest and most careful training. No one 
before this war conceived it possible that officers in command 
of such an arm could be formed without many years of 
application. Now the heavy artillery of the British was 
multiplied by some almost incrediljlc number. It was 
multiplied by eighty or ninety in that short time. How 
instructors were found, how the thing was done at aU, I do 
not know. I only know that it was done, and that before 
GENERAL SIR WILLIAM ROBERTSON 
LIEUT. GENERAL SIR HENRY HORNE 
the end of the second year the force existed. It could not 
be, and was not, as yet equal of its continental allies and 
opponents ; but in the practice of the approaching battle it 
bscame their equal and it was of a standard sufficient to 
undertake its task. - ^ 
The second point, the rapid rotation of divisions in the 
French Army under the strain of Verdun, set a model for the 
rest of the war. The Germans 
at first ridiculed this new develop- 
ment. They joked about the 
vast number of divisions which 
the French had successively put 
into the fighting line, withdrawn, 
replaced, and for a second time, 
and a third time, put in. The 
policy was a novel one and it 
seemed to the enemy a proof of 
exhaustion. The enemy was 
wrong. They were themselves 
destined to copy that system ; it 
was to become the model of all 
action under strain throughout 
the whole remainder of the war. 
To meet the pressure of the new 
type of offensive this rapid rota- 
tion of divisions was the true 
reply. 
(f) The Battle of the Somme. — 
The futile German offensive, 
against Verdun, which had al-' 
ready begun the exhaustion of 
German numbers, was followed 
by the development of the great 
attack composed for the most 
part of the new British Army, 
with a French contingent on 
their right."6l The attack was 
delivered upon that sector of the 
German lines which covered Ba- 
paume and Peronne. It followed, 
though upon a rather more con- 
siderable scale, the story of Verdun. There was an initial 
strong blow, very successful upon the right, checked upon 
the left, and after that a continuous hammering and biting 
into the enemy lines— but no breach of the siege wall. 
There was, indeed, one moment, just a fortnight after the 
opening of the great action, on July 14th, 1916, when the 
enemy defensive organisation appeared to be shaken ; but 
how far it was really shaken we 
shall never know. At any rate the 
breach was not effected. The 
Battle of the Somme ended pre- 
cisely as the Battle of Verdun 
had ended, so far as imme- 
diate strategic consequence was 
involved. The one had been 
an attempted sortie on the part 
of the besieged, which had failed 
against the strength of the modern 
defensive. The other had been 
an attempted breach on the part 
of the besiegers, which had also 
failed against the strength of the 
modem defensive. 
We can, however, to-day affirm 
that two things had appeared 
during the Battle of the Somme 
which were later to have great 
consequences, al' hough for the 
moment they seemed abortive. 
The first was the passing of a 
certain point in the strain upon 
the German numbers ; the second 
was the Tank ; that is, the 
mobile armoured gun. 
It is probable, or certain, that 
during the Battle of the Somme, 
the losses of the defensive were 
for the first time superior to those 
of the offensive. And at the 
conclusion of the struggle the 
effectives of the German Empire, 
for the first time since the beginning of the war, were in 
such a state that their recruitment and maintenance gave 
anxiety to the General Staff. One might compare the pro- 
cess to the wearing down of a textile fabric ; hitherto the 
German military organisation stood homogeneous and 
sound. By the end of the 'ummerof 1916 it had begun to 
get patchy and there were even a few holes. 
(To be continued in the next issue.) 
