HOW THE BOCHE GOT HOME.
75
(a) We ought not to have signed the Armistice
(b) We ought not to have let the Germans retire in good order!
(c) We ought to have followed them to Berlin!
dWe ought to have devastated a German Province or two
Thus, the Territorial Lieut.-Colonel (Home Defences retired with permission to
wear uniform on Ceremonial Occasions C.B.E., etc.) from the best arm-chair in the
Club of the Provincial Town or Watering Place.
PiffleHot airToshand there are other appropriate monosyllables.
And why didn't we? asks the Colonel (H.D., O.B.E., etc.). Because we had
not got a Statesmannow Napoleon By this time he is alone, but for the
paralysed managing clerk who dare not go away.
But the answers are simple.
(a) The country would not have stood it.
(b) We had not the material—the men.
(c) We could not follow them.
This reminds one of the three reasons, given by the wife, for the non-appearance of
a juror. First, He is dead." Thank you," replied the Judge, we will not trouble
you for the other two."
No Intelligence Officer, and no one who followed the retreat from ArrasI am only
competent to speak of this sectorcan have any illusions on the subject. I do not think
that any Field Officer has ever denied that the German retreat was a marvel of military
skill, not only in its execution but in the preparations that were made for it.
For three months before the nth of November, 1914, the number of prisoners
taken by the British was colossalso colossal indeed that the accommodation in Prisoner
Camps was strained to bursting point, the Censorship and Publicity Department was
obliged to deal very lightly with the facts, for the simple reason that these enormous
hauls of prisoners paralysed the efforts of recruiting officers and supplied the unwillingly-
pushed insoluble residuum of possible fighters with a powerful argument for not being
pushed."
There is no doubtindeed it has been admitted by the German Staffthat our
relentless Aerial Propaganda caused thousands of prisoners to come in, in circumstances
which practical^ amounted to desertion. But beyond this, the Germans deliberately
left in our hands, to be fed and lodged and entertained till the end of the War, all their
bouches inutiles," their clerical staffs, hospital staffs, service corps, telegraphists, every
one they could spare, or who would encumber or retard the retreat. The3f withdrew their
fighting menthe Army proper and the Engineers. The only civilians (so to speak)
who were sent back to Germany were the ladies," and in more than one town in the
occupied territories the first inkling that the inhabitants had that all was not well with
the Boche was the sudden departure of the ladies of sympathetic habit who had lightened
the hours of the armies of occupationthe German ladies that isthe others were left
to the fury of the inhabitants as has been picturesquely described by Sir Philip Gibbs.
The day after the Germans evacuated Bruges I was lunching at the Café des Milles Colonnes
(stripped as was every house in the town of every scrap of metaldoor handles, hat
rails, gaseliers, fire-irons and fenders, and so on), where the German officers always fed,
and the daughter of the proprietor told me that so long as the Frauleins were there the
officers always seemed to have plenty of money, but after these had left they were very
hard upwhich made one think!
So the Boche retired in light order, through an undevastated country, where every
means of transport was in perfect running orderthey were therefore able to retreat at
