headquarters--The battle of the Somme the battle of woods and
villages--A terrible school of war in session--Mametz--A wood not
"thinned"--The Quadrangle--Marooned Scots--"Softening" a
village--Light German cigars--Going after Contalmaison--Aeroplanes in
the blue sky--Midsummer fruitfulness and war's destruction--Making
chaos of a village--Attack under cover of a wall of smoke--A
melodrama under the passing shells.

If the British and the French could have gone on day after day as they
had on July 1st they would have put the Germans out of France and
Belgium by autumn. Arrival at the banks of the Rhine and even the taking
of Essen would have been only a matter of calculation by a schedule of
time and distance. After the shock of the first great drive in which the
mighty animal of war lunged forward, it had to stretch out its steel
claws to gain further foothold and draw its bulky body into position for
another huge effort. Wherever the claws moved there were Germans, who
were too wise soldiers to fall back supinely on new lines of
fortifications and await the next general attack. They would parry every
attempt at footholds of approach for launching it; pound the claws as
if they were the hands of an invader grasping at a window ledge.

At headquarters there was a new chart with different colored patches
numbered by the days of the month beginning July 1st, each patch
indicating the ground that had been won on that day. Compare their order
with a relief map and in one-two-three fashion you were able to grasp
the natural tactical sequence; how one position was taken in order to
command another. Sometimes, though, they represented the lines of least
resistance. Often the real generals were the battalions on the battle
front who found the weak points and asked permission to press on. The
principle was the same as water finding its level as it spreads from a
reservoir.

I have often thought that a better name for the battle of the Somme
would be the battle of woods and villages. Their importance never really
dawned on the observer until after July 1st. Or, it might be called the
battle of the spade. Give a man an hour with a spade in that chalky
subsoil and a few sandbags and he will make a fortress for himself which
only a direct hit by a shell can destroy. He ducks under the sweep of
bullets when he is not firing and with his steel helmet is fairly safe
from shrapnel while he waits in his lair until