was — and that of the Somme, which was significant. Of the two, I think anybody would choose a half-dozen Sommes rather than one St. Eloi. On the Somme we went somewhere, got it over with, consolidated, and were relieved. At St. Eloi we crept or were blasted back and forth over the same area daily and nightly for some weeks. There were some splendid moments, but there is something depressing and pathetic about splendid moments that end repeatedly in nothing but more blood and mud. How did the men behave? They carried on.
But there is a vast difference in conditions even when considering those battles which resulted in real advances, as planned. And in the same battle, much depends upon whether you started it or ended it, or came in at the middle. Frequently those troops who launch the assault and gain the first objectives fare better than others who take up the advance on subsequent days. Usually the first assaulting troops leave from fairly comfortable positions which become untenable only about the time they are leaving them for the German front line and points East. They may see as hard fighting as anybody, but they are usually in better shape at the beginning. They have come in after less hard marching and with less harassing delay; and this little matter of waiting is usually more trying than fighting. They know exactly when they are to start and that they needn’t, usually, worry about exposure on either flank. They have only to wait for the barrage to lift, and this interval is usually utilized in checking up and reviewing any special instructions that may have been considered. Generally, however, conditions do not favor talk of any sort; and when the enemy puts down his counter-barrage, conversation becomes almost impossible. Men will shout now and then into the ears of those near them, and sometimes in the course of these words there may be brief mutual reminders to see that those back home are informed that there was nothing particularly distressing about the end; for most men face at this time the possibility that their remaining time on earth may be numbered by minutes. I have seldom noticed any evidence of particular concern about it. There is nervous tension, of course, a greater strain than most men realize; though it is not induced by the imminence of death, in itself; but only because it is in terms of death that results of the next throw of the dice are to be stated; the tension differs only in degree from that to be noted before any event on which much depends, which is final, after which no mistakes can be rectified.
The wise ones are calmly considering the practical aspects; they have already noted the nature of the enemy barrage. Picking out the gaps in it, they point them out to others as favorable places to go over. If conditions favor it, all of them have already been taken out to an advanced position, where they lie low, awaiting the final word. This does not, then, offer a particularly fertile field for psychological analysis. It is largely a simple matter of a feeling of fitness amongst the men, of their being up to scratch. And although this is a simple matter to state, it is a difficult condition to achieve and maintain.
And just that is the burden of my song about riflemen. When you have a good rifleman you have a man who is confident of his ability to take care of himself; the quality pertains not to the rifle, but to himself; so you have a man who can quickly be turned to doing anything. No one can say what another war will be like, what conditions will develop and what weapons will be devised to meet them; but it is certain that men will be required, and it will be more important than ever that these men be highly trained. The rifle, of course, is the primary arm. It belongs peculiarly to the individual soldier; it goes wherever he goes; it is not spent, put out of action, or impossible to get into action in time. The man who most thoroughly understands its use and appreciates its possibilities will be the first to recognize its limitations and adapt himself to something else when needed. He is not trained to win the war with the rifle, but to win the war. He is a hunter and fighter; not a specialist who is at a loss when his specialty fails him.
Such a man was about as well prepared for the developments of trench-warfare as was the keenest strategist and student of military affairs; for these were not at all prepared for it, though, in two nations at least, they had been forty years tuning up for the conflict. The legions of Germany were shot forward smoothly, according to plan, and swung out along the arc which in six weeks was to bring them victory. The French armies were set in motion. Britain sent out her handful. Belgium defended her forts gallantly and fell back. Presently somewhere northeast of Paris an entire British army passed between two German armies without either of the three knowing what was happening. Then they sorted themselves out and we had a battlefield five hundred miles long, siege warfare of a novel sort. And while the proper siege guns were being devised and supplied the rifleman was on the job. When he couldn’t use his rifle, he was making grenades out of bean-tins to meet the emergency.
He had played a main part in preventing that retreat from Mons from being a disaster. And he remained on the job. It is always impossible to know what would have happened if something else hadn’t happened, but it is none the less interesting to speculate upon the number of times that a simple emergency promptly met forestalled an emergency that might have been far from simple. These little things may develop suddenly, in the advanced stages of a battle, on the third gray morning, before sunrise, communications bad, observation zero. A thin line of men has just got into a trench, not yet in possession of it, when some alert eye discovers the enemy debouching in mass for a strong counter attack, pouring through an ample communication trench or along a sheltered defile. Nobody knows it but the man who sees it and the half-dozen whom he can quickly command. It is not only the expert marksman who is needed, but the hunter, whose instinct, or soundly instilled training, is to outwit and overcome, to take care of himself. He fights with sandbags, wire, enemy machine-guns, enemy grenades, and a quiet summons for help; but most of all with resourcefulness and confidence. This is what justifies the insistence upon rifle training, for the rifle is the individual arm and the emphasis is upon the man; in other things the emphasis is upon the specialty and the proper time and manner of its use.
I wish it understood that this is not to be regarded as the viewpoint with which I went into the war. It is that, and a good deal more. I was a rifleman, but I had not thought much about the larger and practical implications of what sound and thorough training as a rifleman means. Now, when I try to assort and set down some of my experiences and observations I find that the significant thing which emerges is the demonstration of the value of this sort of training. If these remarks have any interest at all, it is intended to be a practical one. I have not been concerned with shadows, but with the objects which cast them. I have not been concerned with patterns, but with the forces which make them. I have not been concerned with theories, but with experiences which test them or dispense with them.
I was, most of the time, a machine-gunner. Whatever excellence I may have had with this arm was due largely to my previous training and experience as a rifleman. No amount of special instructions could have taken the place of this training. The same thing holds true in my observation of others. This chapter began with a vague intention of saying something about the reactions of the soldiers to the conditions of the modern battlefield. This is a field for the dramatist, and a fine one it is, too. The net result of my observations, for practical purposes, may be reduced to a single remark: That men behaved well in proportion as they felt themselves equal to the occasion — again, the rifleman. The man who
Retrospect
FIFTEEN years. It is a long time; yet it seems but yesterday. How readily they come back to mind the old faces, the old voices, the old distinguishing characteristics — so readily that one does not at once realize that most of them come back from beyond the beyond. This one lives, perhaps, somewheres, a middle-aged man; and that one, now almost old; but for each one of them a half-dozen are gone where they will grow no older.
Where did they go, and how? Casualties of war.
Of a few we know — all the details, the last words. Of others we remember first-hand accounts — a bullet, a whining fragment of steel, a trench-mortar projectile falling unnoticed in the general uproar. But the great majority — merely casualties, attested by figures.
How gaily they marched and sang over the snow-covered roads of Canada! And in England they marched some more, with enthusiasm unsubdued, but rebelliously impatient to get into action. Then — ah then! Parade hours were behind; it was night in the trenches; some were dead. The transition from the training-ground to the
