of war leave small
room for any kind of pose. A high degree, also, of personal stoicism
easily felt but not obtruded; and towards weak and small things--women
and children--a natural softness and tenderness of feeling, as though
a man who has upon him such stern responsibilities of life and death
must needs grasp at their opposites, when and how he can; keen
intelligence, _bien entendu_, modesty, courtesy; a habit of brevity; a
boy's love of fun: with some such list of characteristics I find
myself trying to answer my own question. They are at least conspicuous
in many leaders of the Allied Armies.

"Why don't you _boom_ your Generals?" said an American diplomatist to
me some eight months ago. "Your public at home knows far too little
about them individually. But the personal popularity of the military
leader in such a national war as this is a military asset."

I believe I entirely agree with the speaker! But it is not the British
military way, and the unwritten laws of the Service stand firm. So let
me only remind you that General Horne led the artillery at Mons; that
he has commanded the First Army since September, 1916; that, in
conjunction with Sir Julian Byng, he carried the Vimy Ridge in 1917,
and held the left at Arras in 1918; and, finally, that he was the
northernmost of the three Army Commanders who stormed the Hindenburg
line last September.

It was in his study and listening to the explanations he gave me, so
clearly and kindly, of the Staff maps that lay before us, that I first
realised with anything like sufficient sharpness the meaning of those
words we have all repeated so often without understanding them--"_the
capture of the Hindenburg line_."

What was the Hindenburg line?

CHAPTER III

TANKS AND THE HINDENBURG LINE

We left Valenciennes on the morning of January 12th. By great luck, an
officer from the First Army, who knew every inch of the ground to be
traversed, was with us, in addition to the officer from G.H.Q., who,
as is always the case with Army visitors, accompanied us most
courteously and efficiently throughout. Captain X took us by a by-road
through the district south of Valenciennes, where in October last year
our troops were fighting a war of movement, in open country, on two
fronts--to the north and to the east. There were no trenches in the
desolate fields we passed through, but many shell-holes, and the banks
of every road were honeycombed with shelters, dug-outs and