98
The Vfres Times.
a bold bombardier dashing about many miles in the rear in a motor. I forget the
reason now, but I remember being satisfied at the time that this was probably correct.
But this woman is a neurotic, and had her father heard her talk like that he would have
died instanter. The losses suffered by his beloved Battalion (which he had commanded
for years, and was too old to command in the field), in its first battles, undoubtedly killed
him.
Answer (b). We had not the men. How interesting. Jerry had, one presumes.
Probably manufactured them from the waste products of, say hot-air, what! He was
not losing men, was he And what of the Americans Didn't count, I suppose, though
I fancy the Germans who met them down Verdun way sort of wouldn't agree. In brief,
Jerry was losing men certainly as fast as the Allies, whilst the Americans alone were
sufficient, or rapidly becoming sufficient, to augment our resources. M.i.yb says we had
not the right sort. Well, I consider the conscripts who came out in 1918 were better than
the men who came out in 1917, on the average. As everyone knows, the conscripts of
1918 were largely laddies who were not old enough to join up before, and I considered them
a great improvement on the Derbyites. Does M.i.yb really mean that had a big draft
been sent from any Camp, the men would have refused to move, or have fought any the
worse when they got out In that case again I despair of the Empire.
Apart from their telegraphists, sendee corps, cooks, etc., that M.i.yb makes such
play with, most of them potentially good men too, as we found with the same kind in
1918, what about the thousands of prisoners who came in in circumstances that practically
amounted to desertion How long could J erry stand his army dwindling like that
And these men were extra, as were the cooks, etc., to the ordinary rank and file who were
killed and wounded, in considerable numbers too. And how did these enormous hauls
of prisoners paralyse the efforts of recruiting officers, and provide the unwillingly pushed
with a powerful argument for not being pushed." I was under the impression we had
conscription.
Lastly cwe could not follow them. Here M.i.yb gets on safer ground. In my
part of the world we managed to keep pretty close to him in spite of the ground behind
us, as well as what Jerry left to us, and all that I have read on the subject would seem
to show that the Armies further south, Cambrai and Albert way, managed, in spite of
incredible difficulties, to keep in pretty close touch with J erry up to the last. In any case
we must have come up with him again, and with Jerry at home getting more and more
done up for want of food, and many other things, and with our continuous and most
destructive propaganda thinning out his ranks, and undermining both the morale of the
troops and of the people at home he could hardly have held up his pursuers for any great
length of time. Of course in his retreat he was going back on the dumps in his rear, yet
he lost immense quantities. How much longer could he afford to lose men, with the
nation's morale as it was then, and dump after dump
In the history of the 9th (Scottish) Div., page 383, it says, though the pursuit was
retardedby roads and railways having been minedit was beyond doubt that the
German forces would have been compelled ignominously to lay down their arms." And,
same page, higher up, Surmounting their commissariat difficulties the Americans broke
the enemy line on the southern flank of the battle, and this disaster destroyed all chance
of the German Army being safely withdrawn behind the Rhine for the protection of the
Fatherland."
If M.I.7b will look at a map with the German lines of communication marked thereon
he will see that the above quotations are probably, and I may say, inevitably true.
One last remark. M.i.yb says he is only competent to speak of the Arras Front,"
which seems to have found him at Menin on the night of the day the Germans evacuated
that place, and at Bruges the day after Jerry left it. The Arras front seems to have
expanded somewhat since I was there from November, 1916, to June, 1917. Some front,
what
