this process would work in
so drastic a manner as to render all our preconceived ideas of the
method of tactical field operations comparatively ineffective and
useless. Judged by the course of events in the first three weeks of
the War, neither French nor German generals were prepared for the
complete transformation of all military ideas which the development of
the operations inevitably demonstrated to be imperative for waging war
in present conditions.

It is easy to be "wise after the event"; but I cannot help wondering
why none of us realised what the most modern rifle, the machine gun,
motor traction, the aeroplane and wireless telegraphy would bring
about. It seems so simple when judged by actual results. The modern
rifle and machine gun add tenfold to the relative power of the defence
as against the attack. This precludes the use of the old methods of
attack, and has driven the attack to seek covered entrenchments after
every forward rush of at most a few hundred yards.

It has thus become a practical operation to place the heaviest
artillery in position close behind the infantry fighting line, not
only owing to the mobility afforded by motor traction but also because
the old dread of losing the guns before they could be got away no
longer exists. The crucial necessity for the effective employment of
heavy artillery is observation, and this is provided by the balloon
and the aeroplane, which, by means of wireless telegraphy, can keep
the batteries instantly informed of the accuracy of their fire.

I feel sure in my own mind that had we realised the true effect of
modern appliances of war in August, 1914, there would have been no
retreat from Mons, and that if, in September, the Germans
had learnt their lesson, the Allies would never have driven them back
to the Aisne. It was in the fighting on that river that the eyes of
all of us began to be opened.

New characteristics of offensive and defensive war began vaguely to be
appreciated; but it required the successive attempts of Maunoury, de
Castelnau, Foch and myself to turn the German flanks in the north in
the old approved style, and the practical failure of these attempts,
to bring home to our minds the true nature of war as it is to-day.

About the middle of November, 1914--after three and a half months of
war--we were fairly settled down to the war of positions.

It was, therefore, in a somewhat troubled frame of mind that I began
to play my humble par