y human counters into the
pool for the final "kitty" in this gamble with life and death. One may
balance the German offensive in March of '18 with the weight that was
piling up against them by the entry of the Americans. One may also see
now, very clearly, the paramount importance of the human factor in this
arithmetic of war, the morale of men being of greater influence than
generalship, though dependent on it, the spirit of peoples being as
vital to success as the mechanical efficiency of the war-machine; and
above all, one is now able to observe how each side blundered on in a
blind, desperate way, sacrificing masses of human life without a clear
vision of the consequences, until at last one side blundered more than
another and was lost. It will be impossible to pretend in history that
our High Command, or any other, foresaw the thread of plot as it was
unraveled to the end, and so arranged its plan that events happened
according to design. The events of March, 1918, were not foreseen nor
prevented by French or British. The ability of our generals was not
imaginative nor inventive, but limited to the piling up of men and
munitions, always more men and more munitions, against positions of
enormous strength and overcoming obstacles by sheer weight of flesh and
blood and high explosives. They were not cunning so far as I could
see, nor in the judgment of the men under their command, but simple and
straightforward gentlemen who said "once more unto the breach," and sent
up new battering-rams by brigades and divisions. There was no evidence
that I could find of high directing brains choosing the weakest spot
in the enemy's armor and piercing it with a sharp sword, or avoiding a
direct assault against the enemy's most formidable positions and leaping
upon him from some unguarded way. Perhaps that was impossible in the
conditions of modern warfare and the limitations of the British front
until the arrival of the tanks, which, for a long time, were wasted in
the impassable bogs of Flanders, where their steel skeletons still lie
rusting as a proof of heroic efforts vainly used. Possible or not, and
rare genius alone could prove it one way or another, it appeared to the
onlooker, as well as to the soldier who carried out commands that our
method of warfare was to search the map for a place which was strongest
in the enemy's lines, most difficult to attack, most powerfully
defended, and then after due advertisement, not to take a