tillery. Whilst
their total proportion of guns to bayonets was fully maintained, the
proportion of field guns to bayonets was reduced, and all heavy guns
enormously increased. Each month the development of heavy artillery
became more accentuated until, towards the late spring of 1915, the
greater number of projectiles fired by the Germans, whenever
operations of any importance were taking place, were of 5.9 and
upwards. This was in defence as well as in attack, and by this means
the enemy endeavoured to shatter the _morale_ of the attackers, as
well as to inflict very heavy casualties.

The necessity for a great preponderance of heavy artillery was also
recognised by the French long before our War Office could be persuaded
to move in that direction. From early in the war they aimed at
obtaining one heavy gun of 6-in. calibre and upwards for every field
gun they held, without reducing the proportion to bayonets of the
latter which obtains in the French Army. To meet these requirements
the French were taking guns from their old warships and coast defence
ships, and straining every nerve to get guns of heavy calibre into the
field.

In May, 1915, the proportion of field to heavy guns above 6-in.
calibre in the French Army was 2.3 to one. At this time the British
Army had but 71 guns altogether above 5-in. calibre against 1,416
below it, and no adequate steps whatever had yet been taken to bring
the proportion more nearly to the requirements of modern warfare. The
supply of trench guns and mortars, with their ammunition,
hand-grenades, and other most necessary munitions of war, was almost
negligible, nor was there any active attempt to understand and grapple
vitally with the new problems calling for the application of modern
science to the character of warfare that had developed.

I have referred before to the disinclination of the War Office, prior
to the war, to take up seriously the question of high explosives; the
natural consequence was that the true nature of high-explosive shells,
and the correct particulars which govern their construction, were not
properly understood, as they had too little experience of them.

The deadly nature of modern rifle and machine-gun fire had brought
about trench warfare, which enabled the troops opposite to one another
to approach to ranges which were customary in the days of the
Peninsula and Waterloo. The time-honoured grenades, which were so
marked a feature in those days, were t