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In a chapter of England's Effort I have described the amazing development of some of the great armament works in order to meet this cry for guns, as I saw it in February 1916. The second stage of the war had then begun. The first was over, and we were steadily overtaking our colossal task. The Somme proved it abundantly.
When we left Picardy I thought we were going to Fontainebleau; I never dreamed we were about to exchange the sunny slopes of the Somme for this!" "No doubt," said Marguerite, with a little sigh, "my uncle has good reasons for remaining here so long. You know his cherished schemes about the New World."
The Armagnacs, who had gathered at Rouen, also pushed fast to the north, and having choice of passage over the Somme, Amiens being in their hands, got before King Henry, while he had to make a long round before he could get across that stream. Consequently, when, on his way, he reached Azincourt, he found the whole chivalry of France arrayed against him in his path.
It soon became known, however, that the Division was moving south to take over a section of the line hitherto held by the French, still in the Somme area, just south of Peronne. From Becourt the Battalion continued its march to Ribemont.
For they have been through a life of which you, or any people past and present who have not been to this war, have not the first beginnings of a conception; something beside which a South Polar expedition is a dance and a picnic. And that is without taking into account the additional fact that night and day, on the Somme where these conditions existed, men live under the unceasing sound of guns.
It is for the military critic of the future to analyse any tactical errors that may have been made at the second battle of the Somme. Apparently there was an absence of preparation, of specific orders from high sources in the event of having to cede ground.
At length all became still, and the only sound which filled the air was the sluggish murmur of the river Somme, as it glided, deep and muddy, under the walls of the castle. "Go into the hall, my mates," said Louis to his train; "but do not lie down to sleep. Hold yourselves in readiness, for there is still something to be done tonight, and that of moment."
On the other hand, during the past few months the Allied gains on the Somme have included, among other items, a chain of fortresses hitherto considered impregnable, four or five hundred pieces of artillery, fourteen hundred machine-guns, and about ninety-five thousand unwounded German prisoners.
No flint tools have yet been observed there, but had the old alluvium of Amiens or Abbeville occurred in the Norfolk cliffs instead of the valley of the Somme, and had we depended on the waves of the sea instead of the labour of many hundred workmen continued for twenty years, for exposing the flint implements to view, we might have remained ignorant to this day of the fossil relics brought to light by M. Boucher de Perthes and those who have followed up his researches.
The prisoners consisted of about seventy-five French, living on the ground floor, and eighty-five British, mostly R.F.C., taken at the Somme, living on the second floor, and from one hundred and fifty to two hundred Russians on the third.
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