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While Philip was away, looking out for his capital, Paris, which Edward was threatening, Edward hastened back to get possession of the bridge, repaired it, and marched his army over before Philip could return. Both armies then struck across the country toward the River Somme. Philip reached the river first.
It was not until January that this splendid spacious motor-ambulance arrived and was offered immediately to the French Red Cross. Presently others arrived and were offered to the Service de Santé. These cars have never ceased to transport the wounded from the Front lines to hospitals in the War Zone. I heard of one in the north and another in the Somme.
The physical geography of France was in those days different from what it is now the river Somme, for instance, having cut its bed a hundred feet deeper between that time and this; and, it is probable, that the climate was more like that of Canada or Siberia, than that of Western Europe. The existence of these people is forgotten even in the traditions of the oldest historical nations.
These attacks occurred chiefly along the part of the line north of the Somme battle zone, and they extended as far as the sea. One of them occurred on the 30th August, 1916, at Monchy, between Arras and Bapaume. About one thousand cylinders were discharged during the night.
I knew every inch of the country the lift of the hill east of Amiens, the Roman highway that ran straight as an arrow to St Quentin, the marshy lagoons of the Somme, and that broad strip of land wasted by battle between Dompierre and Peronne.
Perhaps it was to blot out the vision of the things they had seen." Meanwhile, despite the threatening character of the Allied offensive on the Somme, German assaults on the Verdun front continued unabated during July, and there was little evidence of the withdrawal of German troops from that point to reinforce the army opposed to the British.
Possibly the knowledge that the Somme still lay between their enemies and the sea, and that the same difficulties with regard to the bridges was to be found there, kept the French army secure still of final victory.
"You'll see" I recall once more the words of our Flight-Commander, spoken amid the noise and movement of a score of practising machines, five weeks before the battle of Arras "when the great move begins we shall get the mastery again, as we did on the Somme."
Thus, as in the first days of fighting in the Somme, there was desperate fighting to gain or regain a few hundred yards of trenches. With varying fortunes the opponents fought back and forth over the same ground without either side gaining any distinct advantage, though both were losers in precious lives.
I know it is the beginning of the end and the end will be grand for all those who have fought in the just cause." A month later thousands of English, Scotch, Welsh and Irish lads, men from Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia, were passing on the Somme through a similar furnace of death and suffering to that borne by the French at Verdun.
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