se of our success,
a considerable gap in our line. To insure, however, the speedy and
effective support of the 1st and 4th Corps in the case of their success,
the 21st and 24th Divisions passed the night of the 24th and 25th on
the line Beuvry (to the east of Bethune)-Noeux-les-Mines. The Guards
Division was in the neighborhood of Lillers on the same night."

By that statement, and by the facts that happened in accordance with it,
the whole scheme of attack in the battle of Loos will stand challenged
in history. Lord French admits in that despatch that he held his
reserves "in his own hand," and later he states that it was not until
nine-thirty on the morning of battle that "I placed the 21st and 24th
Divisions at the disposal of the General Officer commanding First Army."
He still held the Guards. He makes, as a defense of the decision to hold
back the reserves, the extraordinary statement that there "would be a
considerable gap in our line in case of our success." That is to say,
he was actually envisaging a gap in the line if the attack succeeded
according to his expectations, and risking the most frightful
catastrophe that may befall any army in an assault upon a powerful
enemy, provided with enormous reserves, as the Germans were at that
time, and as our Commander-in-Chief ought to have known.

But apart from that the whole time-table of the battle was, as it now
appears, fatally wrong. To move divisions along narrow roads requires
an immense amount of time, even if the roads are clear, and those roads
toward Loos were crowded with the transport and gun-limbers of the
assaulting troops. To move them in daylight to the trenches meant
inevitable loss of life and almost certain demoralization under the
enemy's gun-fire.

"Between 11 A.M. and 12 noon the central brigade of these divisions
filed past me at Bethune and Noeux-les-Mines, respectively," wrote Sir
John French. It was not possible for them to reach our old trenches
until 4 P.M. It was Gen. Sir Frederick Maurice, the Chief of Staff, who
revealed that fact to me afterward in an official explanation, and it
was confirmed by battalion officers of the 24th Division whom I met.

That time-table led to disaster. By eight o'clock in the morning there
were Scots on Hill 70. They had been told to go "all out," with the
promise that the ground they gained would be consolidated by following
troops. Yet no supports were due to arrive until 4 P.M. at our original
line