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The enemy had arranged his operations, as usual, by timetable, but he had failed to take into consideration the character of the British soldier, with the result his schemes had "gone agley." To save men the German high command gave orders for a further retirement to their Hindenburg defences, a fortified line of such strength as had never been equalled.
He had been very close to the Hindenburg Line and it had meant no more to him than the equator. He had found the war to be like a three-ringed circus it was too big. Temple Camp was about the right size.
Nevertheless, towards the end of the Ypres battle the tank attack in the first Battle of Cambrai was being planned, and there, at last, the enthusiasts of the Tank Corps had the conditions for which they had been long hoping a good ground and a surprise attack. "It is important to remember, the letter continues, that the Hindenburg line at that time presented an insoluble problem.
"Tam seems to have had an adventure, sir," he said, when he had induced H. Q. exchange to connect him with his general and gave the lurid details. "It might be Hindenburg," said the general thoughtfully.
Apart from the effort to outflank, neither side could therefore have any definite plan, and neither was able to choose the scene of conflict. Two years later, when they withdrew to the Hindenburg lines, the Germans admitted freely enough that the earlier line had been none of their choice, and it was certainly none of ours.
It was a telegram from Field Marshal von Kluck, which read: "Have just received a despatch from General Leonard Wood, stating that his Imperial Highness the Crown Prince and Field Marshal von Hindenburg, with their military staffs, have been made prisoners by an American army north of the Susquehanna, and giving warning that if retaliatory measures are taken against American citizens, his Imperial Highness will, within twenty-four hours, be stood up before the statue of his Imperial ancestor Frederick the Great, in the War College at Washington, and shot to death by a firing squad from the Pennsylvania National Guard.
She hoped that when Hungary perceived her regiments sacrificed and her plains overrun by Russian troops, she would regret that she had allowed herself to be sacrificed to Prussian ambition. The Russians, therefore, suddenly, moved toward Cracow. Then von Hindenburg came to the rescue. The supreme command of the Austrian forces was given to him.
They had to fight again before they could go, and they fought like demons or demigods for their right of way and home, and bombed the enemy back to his holes in the ground. So ended the assault on the Hohenzollern by the Midland men of England, whose division, years later, helped to break the Hindenburg line along the great canal south of St.-Quentin.
From three sides day and night the sturdy defenders were assailed by the Germans, but their attacks by day were killed by the British artillery, and at night were driven off by bomb and bayonet. The Germans had good reason to value this wedge bitten into the Hindenburg line, for its possession by the Australians weakened an otherwise strong position that ran formerly from Arras to Queant.
And how intermingled we all were! Vera and Nina, M. Robert and Mdlle. Flori on the other side of the footlights, Trenchard and Marie killed in Galicia, the Kaiser and Hindenburg, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the postmaster of my village in Glebeshire.
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