A Visit to Three Fronts

In old days we had a great name as organisers. Then came a long period / when we deliberately adopted a policy of individuality and 'go as you / please. ' Now once again in our sore need we have called on all our / power of administration and direction. But it has not deserted us. We / still have it in a supreme degree. Even in peace time we have shown it / in that vast, well-oiled, swift-running, noiseless machine called the / British Navy. But now our powers have risen with the need of them. The / expansion of the Navy has been a miracle, the management of the / transport a greater one, the formation of the new Army the greatest of / all time. To get the men was the least of the difficulties. To put them / here, with everything down to the lid of the last field saucepan in its / place, that is the marvel. The tools of the gunners, and of the / sappers, to say nothing of the knowledge of how to use them, are in / themselves a huge problem. But it has all been met and mastered, and / will be to the end. But don't let us talk any more about the muddling / of the War Office. It has become just a little ridiculous.

I have told of my first day, when I visited the front trenches, saw the / work of 'Mother,' and finally that marvellous spectacle, the Ypres / Salient at night. I have passed the night at the headquarters of a / divisional-general, Capper, who might truly be called one of the two / fathers of the British flying force, for it was he, with Templer, who / laid the first foundations from which so great an organisation has / arisen. My morning was spent in visiting two fighting brigadiers, / cheery weather-beaten soldiers, respectful, as all our soldiers are, of / the prowess of the Hun, but serenely confident that we can beat him. In / company with one of them I ascended a hill, the reverse slope of which / was swarming with cheerful infantry in every stage of dishabille, for / they were cleaning up after the trenches. Once over the slope we / advanced with some care, and finally reached a certain spot from which / we looked down upon the German line. It was the advanced observation / post, about a thousand yards from the German trenches, with our own / trenches between us. We could see the two lines, sometimes only a few / yards, as it seemed, apart, extending for miles on either side. The / sinister silence and solitude were strangely dramatic. Such vast crowds / of men, such intensity of feeling, and yet only that open rolling / countryside, with never a movement in its whole expanse.