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The staff-work of his army was as good in detail as any machinery of war may be, and the tactical direction of the Second Army battles was not slipshod nor haphazard, as so many others, but prepared with minute attention to detail and after thoughtful planning of the general scheme.
We were on the point of entering Bapaume; the "pushing up" was going extraordinarily well, owing to the excellence of the staff-work, and the energy and efficiency of all the auxiliary services the Engineers, and the Labour Battalions, all the makers of roads and railways, the builders of huts, and levellers of shell-broken ground.
If it is further true that at the actual points of fighting the disproportion was five to one, we need no further illustration of the ills which inadequate co-ordination imposes on an Alliance, and inadequate staff-work and intelligence on any fighting force. The Allied tactics were probably not so clumsy nor the German troops so feeble as these thoughtless estimates imply.
Many times the Second Army would not order an attack or decide the time of it before consulting the divisional generals and brigadiers, and obtaining their consensus of opinion. The officers and men in the Second Army did actually come to acknowledge the value of the staff-work behind them, and felt a confidence in its devotion to their interests which was rare on the western front.
He held the supreme command of the British armies on the western front when, in the battlefields of the Somme and Flanders, of Picardy and Artois, there was not much chance for daring strategy, but only for hammer-strokes by the flesh and blood of men against fortress positions the German trench systems, twenty-five miles deep in tunneled earthworks and machine-gun dugouts when the immensity of casualties among British troops was out of all proportion to their gains of ground, so that our men's spirits revolted against these massacres of their youth and they were embittered against the generalship and staff-work which directed these sacrificial actions.
I had to pretend to be satisfied, for the position of John S. wasn't so strong as to allow him to take liberties. If I asked one of the highbrows he looked wise and spoke of the might of German arms and German organization and German staff-work. I used to nod my head and get enthusiastic about these stunts, but it was all soft soap.
The same qualities were essential for the arduous and deadly task of breaking the German line in the Argonne, which was the finishing blow on the western battlefields. The defects of the American armies have been emphasized by European experts. They point especially to the faulty staff-work, apparent in the Argonne particularly, which resulted in heavy losses.
Business of the state, both civil and military, and of the Church was regularly conducted at York from early times. This political importance lasted long and is intimately connected with many events in the city's history. The fort and military defences were renewed from time to time, and staff-work and general administration, whether Roman or Edwardian, were conducted from York.
The eighteen huge land-mines in whose shafts our second line had been so often billeted were now at last exploded and the sky was full of powdered earth, with God knows what other fragments. In that darkness the troops went over. For once staff-work and execution harmonized perfectly; the success was complete, and the sacrifice small.
But there were no reserves at hand to consolidate the victory and hold up the German counter-attacks. There were plenty miles away in the rear, retained by Sir John French because along the extended line of attack from Ypres to Lens it was not known where they would most be needed; and even when the need was clear, interrupted telephones and defective staff-work caused confusion and delay.
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