d even in their
own country.

For in truth we in England know very little about our bases abroad; about
what it means to supply the ever-growing needs of the English Armies in
France. The military world takes what has been done for granted; the
general English public supposes that the Tommies, when their days in the
home camps are done, get "somehow" conveyed to the front, being "somehow"
equipped, fed, clothed, nursed, and mended, and sent on their way across
France in interminable lines of trains. As to the details of the process,
it rarely troubles its head. The fact is, however, that the work of the
great supply bases abroad, of the various Corps and Services connected
with them--Army Ordnance, Army Service, Army Medical, railway and motor
transport--is a desperately interesting study; and during the past
eighteen months, under the "I.G.C."--Inspector-General of
Communications--has developed some of the best brains in the Army.

Two days spent under the guidance of the Base Commandant or an officer of
his staff among the docks and warehouses of a great French port, among the
huts of its reinforcement camp, which contains more men than Aldershot
before August, 1914, or in its workshops of the Army Ordnance Corps, gave
me my first experience of the organising power that has gone to these
departments of the war. The General in command of the base was there in
the first weeks of the struggle and during the great retreat. He retired
with his staff to Nantes--leaving only a broken motor-car behind
him!--just about the time that the French Government betook itself to
Bordeaux. But in September he was back again, and the building-up process
began, which has since known neither stop nor stay. That the commercial
needs of a great French port should have been able to accommodate
themselves as they have to the military needs of the British Army speaks
loudly for the tact and good feeling on both sides. The task has not been
at all times an easy one; and I could not help thinking as we walked
together through the crowded scene, that the tone and temper of the able
man beside me--his admiration, simply expressed, yet evidently profound,
for the French spirit in the war, and for the heroic unity of the country
through all ranks and classes, accounted for a great deal. In the presence
of a good-will so strong, difficulties disappear.

Look now at this immense hangar or storehouse--the largest in the
world--through which we are wa