A Visit to Three Fronts

It is not an easy matter to write from the front. You know that there / are several courteous but inexorable gentlemen who may have a word in / the matter, and their presence 'imparts but small ease to the style. ' / But above all you have the twin censors of your own conscience and / common sense, which assure you that, if all other readers fail you, you / will certainly find a most attentive one in the neighbourhood of the / Haupt-Quartier. An instructive story is still told of how a certain / well-meaning traveller recorded his satisfaction with the appearance of / the big guns at the retiring and peaceful village of Jamais, and how / three days later, by an interesting coincidence, the village of Jamais / passed suddenly off the map and dematerialised into brickdust and / splinters.

I have been with soldiers on the warpath before, but never have I had a / day so crammed with experiences and impressions as yesterday. Some of / them at least I can faintly convey to the reader, and if they ever / reach the eye of that gentleman at the Haupt-Quartier they will give / him little joy. For the crowning impression of all is the enormous / imperturbable confidence of the Army and its extraordinary efficiency / in organisation, administration, material, and personnel. I met in one / day a sample of many types, an Army commander, a corps commander, two / divisional commanders, staff officers of many grades, and, above all, I / met repeatedly the two very great men whom Britain has produced, the / private soldier and the regimental officer. Everywhere and on every / face one read the same spirit of cheerful bravery. Even the half-mad / cranks whose absurd consciences prevent them from barring the way to / the devil seemed to me to be turning into men under the prevailing / influence. I saw a batch of them, neurotic and largely be-spectacled, / but working with a will by the roadside. They will volunteer for the / trenches yet.