The Right Honorable David Lloyd-George Prime Minister of Great Admiral Sir David Beatty Who Commanded the Bat- Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig Who Has Led the New Admiral Sir John Jellicoe First Sea-Lord of the Brit- THE BRITISH FIGHTING MACHINE BY FRANK SIMONDS (Author of "The History of the World War") [Mr. Simonds is the one American who has made a name for himself as a writer on the strategy and tactics of this war. His years of studious preparation gave him the background and knowledge to make his interpretations illuminating. By close application to the march of events and personal visits to the front and contact with the generals of the Allied armies he has kept abreast of the kaleidoscopic changes in the conduct of the great struggle.-THE EDITORS.] I T IS nearly six months ago since I said to Sir Douglas Haig, in speaking of American impressions of the British Army, that the victory won at Beaumont-Hamel, late in the campaign of last year, was accepted in my country among military men as the first clear evidence of the arrival of the "new" army. In this brilliant operation the coördination between British artillery and British infantry was first unmistakably disclosed, and I remember that the British Commander-in-Chief said quietly: "I think we shall do better next time." 袖 There have been many "next times" since I saw Sir Douglas Haig last February. Vimy, "White Sheet," Hill No. 70, and the recent advance about Ypres have all demonstrated the accuracy of the British Commander's fore cast. A year ago the whole world marveled at the feat of the French in retaking Vaux and Douaumont. It was one of the most remarkable achievements of the war, but the French are themselves the first to concede that at Wytschaete the British equaled their success. It would be difficult to exaggerate the achievement of Great Britain and her colonies in mobilizing and training millions of a civil population and in three years wresting from a nation which had prepared for forty years. supremacy in guns, in materials, and in men. But this the British have done. Since they began their attack at the Somme on the first of July, 1916, the British lines have gone slowly but steadily forward, and while the change on the front has been slight, measured by American distances, the change in morale of the two armies has been colossal and the German army has had to yield first the offensive and then the hope of a permanently successful defensive. At the Somme the British broke down the German system of defense, based upon permanent works. After the Somme the Germans had to reorganize their entire system of defense, and we had in the spring Hindenburg's so-called "elastic" defense. In the middle of September, at Ypres, the British showed that they had mastered this defense, too, and their advance along the Menin Road, down which the Prussian Guard came in the tragic final hours of the first Battle of Ypres, was an achievement comparable with the retaking of Messines. British achievement means a new thing to us in America now that we in our turn have to seek a similar organization for an even more completely unorganized people. In the next three years we shall probably realize the true magnitude of the British progress in the last three years. We shall be fortunate indeed if, three years after our entrance into the war, we can point to victories like those of Arras and Messines, and to stern and heroic struggles toward achievement such as the Somme. |