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August 9, 1918
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At the hour of the
assault French, Canadian, Australian, and English divisions, assisted by a
large number of British Tanks, stormed the Germans on a front of over 20
miles
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By the combined attack which was launched yesterday morning by the Fourth British and the First French Armies the Germans have been driven several miles from their positions north-east, east, and south-east of Amiens, and the threat to this important Allied centre has been relieved to this extent. The Germans were completely surprised by the attack, and over the larger part of the front the advance of the Allied troops was rapid. There were, however, points at which the enemy offered stout resistance, and it was only after heavy fighting that it was possible to make progress. The infantry had the support of light British Tanks and armoured cars, and, after the objectives had been gained, British cavalry pursued the retreating enemy, riding down German transport and limbers, capturing villages, and taking prisoners. Sir Douglas Haig, who is in command of the joint operations, states in his night report that, though no accurate estimate can yet be given of the prisoners or guns captured, it is known that the former amount to several thousands. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, however, who, at yesterday’s sitting, informed the House of Commons of the substantial progress which had been made by the Allies, put the number of the prisoners at 7,000 and the guns at upwards of 100.
IN THE HOUSE
In the House of Commons yesterday Mr Bonar Law said: I am sure the House will be interested to learn the latest information with regard to the attack which took place this morning. The attack was launched at dawn by the Fourth British Army, comprising British, Australian, and Canadian troops, and by the First French Army, both of which are under the command of Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig. The attack was on a front of something like 20 kilometres [21 miles] from Morlancourt to Montdidier. We have just been in communication by telephone with Headquarters, and the result, I am sure, will give satisfaction to every member of the House. The Allies had attained by 3 o’clock all the points which they had set out to gain as their objectives. At that hour we had already captured upwards of 100 guns and 7,000 prisoners were already in cages. (Cheers.) The front, as I have already said, is about 20 kilometres, and, as far as I can judge from examining the map and the places we have reached, this represents an advance on the average of something between four and five miles, and in one case it is an advance of seven miles. This ground is immediately in front of Amiens, and therefore its strategic importance will be obvious to everyone. I do not desire in any way to exaggerate the importance of this achievement. It is quite possible, and, indeed, it is regarded as probable, that the Germans, on account of previous attacks, had intended to retire, but this attack has come upon them as a complete surprise, and has upset whatever plans they may have formed. It affords me, as I am sure it will every member of this House, the greatest satisfaction that, at this stage of the session, a result should have been attained which, without exaggeration, is an indication of the complete change in the military position which has taken place in the last few weeks. (Loud cheers.) The following telegraphic dispatches were received from General Headquarters in France yesterday 10.15am. At dawn this morning the British Fourth Army and French First Army, under the command of Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, attacked on a wide front east and south-east of Amiens. First reports indicate that the attack is progressing satisfactorily. 8.30pm. The operations commenced this morning on the Amiens front by the French First Army, under command of General Debeney, and the British Fourth Army, under command of General Sir Henry Rawlinson are proceeding successfully. The assembly of the Allied troops was completed, under cover of night, unnoticed by the enemy. At the hour of the assault French, Canadian, Australian, and English divisions, assisted by a large number of British Tanks, stormed the Germans on a front of over 20 miles from the Avre River at Braches to the neighbourhood of Morlancourt. The enemy was taken by surprise, and at all points the Allied troops made rapid progress. At an early hour our first objectives had been reached on the whole front of attack. During the morning the advance of the Allied infantry continued, actively assisted by British cavalry, light Tanks, and motor machine-gun batteries. The resistance of the German divisions in line was overcome, at certain points after sharp fighting, and many prisoners and a number of guns were captured by our troops. French troops, attacking with great gallantry, crossed the Avre River, and, despite the enemy’s opposition, carried the hostile defences. North of the Somme the greater part of our final objectives were gained before noon, but in the neighbourhood of Chipilly and south of Morlancourt parties of the enemy observed a prolonged resistance. In both localities fighting was heavy, but. ultimately our troops broke down the opposition of the German infantry and gained their objectives. South of the Somme the gallantry of the Allied infantry, and the dash and vigour of their attacks, had gained, during the; afternoon, the final objectives for the day on practically the whole battle front. Assisted by our light Tanks and armoured cars, the cavalry passed through the infantry and beyond our objectives, riding down German transport and limbers in their retreat, surrounding and capturing villages, and taking many prisoners. The general line reached by our troops runs: Plessier-Rozainvillers-Beaucourt-Caix-Framerville-Chipilly-West of Morlancourt. No accurate estimate can yet be given concerning the number of prisoners and guns or the amount of material captured, but it is known that several thousand prisoners and many guns have fallen into our hands. |
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August 10, 1918
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One of the more notable
prisoners is a regimental commander (of whom this corps has taken two,
besides many other officers), who when he was taken tried to hide his papers
by thrusting them into his breeches down to his knees. There, however, they
made a bulge which could not be overlooked
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| Our success continues to grow, but it is as impossible now to say precisely to what point our advance will have reached tonight as it was yesterday. If yesterday I had ventured an estimate of our captures I should have placed them at about 10,000 prisoners and 200 guns, but I refrained from giving figures lest they should seem fantastic. Now I believe that we have something like 15,000 prisoners, nearly 14,000 having been counted up to noon today. As for the territory, besides the villages which I named as in our hands yesterday, we had by last evening also occupied Bayonvillers, Wiencourt, Harbonnieres, Guillaucourt, Caix, Ignaucourt, Cayeux, and Beaucourt. |
This morning, shortly before 6 o’clock, we took Le Quesnel, and at 10 o’clock, on part of the line, and at II o’clock on the rest, we resumed our general advance on the south side of the Somme. Meanwhile, on our right the French, besides Morisel and Moreuil and Villers-aux-Erables, mentioned yesterday, have apparently taken Mezieres, Fresnoy, La Neuville, and Plessier, keeping thus well abreast of us, and they have taken several. thousand prisoners.
It is on the north of the Somme that our success is least complete. I need not explain again that this area south of Mericourt has been the scene of continuous fighting, and the Germans here were always prepared and in extremely strong positions. The surprise which was so effective everywhere else on the line was useless here, because there had been fighting here on both preceding mornings, and the enemy had new storm troops there.
Today very fierce fighting has been going on about Chipilly, there the German positions have given some trouble to our left flank on the immediate south side of the river, and I understand early this afternoon that this area is in our hands. Undoubtedly there is stern work in hand here, between the Ancre and the Somme, and the Germans fight desperately to maintain their hold of the high ground on the north side of the latter river.
SOME WONDERFUL DOINGS
On the main front of advance below the Somme it will be some days before anything like a clear account of what has been going on can be given. One hears wonderful tales of cavalry ranging over open country at night and capturing villages, of Tanks nosing about on astounding adventures and rounding up machine-gun posts, and of whole batteries of guns and of armoured cars thrusting along the roads far in advance of the infantry, and surprising the Germans at places from which they thought the battle was still remote. One car is said to have met a German transport column on the road which tried to turn and escape. Four German mounted officers came up to find out what was the matter, and they were all shot down from the car, which then proceeded to round up the personnel of the transport column as prisoners.
At several places the cars caught both mechanical and horse-drawn transport on the roads and shot the horses and took the men prisoners.
One car attacked a train on the railway and set it on fire and wrecked it. Another found a certain village unwakened to the presence of danger and went through the streets shooting through the windows at one house and finding an officers’ mess at a meal. Yet another, near Framerville, found itself among hutments, which it discovered to be a Corps Headquarters. It shot down some Corps Staff officers and others and poured bullets into the huts. Then it heard that some part of the Staff had escaped along the road towards Peronne, so started after them and hunted them along the road, scattering them into the woods. How many of the Corps Staff were killed, or what happened to the corps commander, is not known.
GERMAN OFFICER’S LIES
Of prisoners I have myself seen many thousands. One corps had over 4,600 through its cage in the first 24 hours. I visited the cage this morning soon after dawn, and the Staff had been at work all night. A column of 1,000 was just leaving, being marched along the road in column of route to be taken farther back, and there were still 3,000 in the cage itself. They kept on clearing them in batches all the morning, but when I passed again at noon the cage was as full as ever, and a few hundred more were just arriving.
One of the more notable prisoners is a regimental commander (of whom this corps has taken two, besides many other officers), who when he was taken tried to hide his papers by thrusting them into his breeches down to his knees. There, however, they made a bulge which could not be overlooked. When questioned, he denied there was anything there, and was furious at his honour being questioned. Finally, after warning, it was necessary to search him, which was done as courteously as possible, and the papers were recovered, while he swore horribly all the time, reviling the coarseness of the brutal English nation and their utter lack of courtesy to a distinguished German officer.
Another corps has got at least 4,000 prisoner, and probably many more. Among interesting lots in this cage is a party of 500 Saxons who were caught in a train which was intercepted as it was coming up to the front. All the prisoners whom I have seen have been good-looking lots of men, much above the average of those taken recently, though containing a certain proportion of extreme youths and weaklings. Of the booty taken besides prisoners, it is hopeless yet to make any estimate, for guns and machine-guns and material of all kinds are strewn all over the battlefields.
BATTLEFIELD VISITED
I have myself spent much of the day from very early morning until noon walking over parts of the battlefield, having first the extraordinary experience of being able to pass in a motor-car not only over what yesterday was No Man’s Land, but over the trenches of the front German system, and from my seat in the car to look down on the enemy dead below. When the road became impassable by reason of the shell holes made by our guns one could stray at large over the great deserted plain, while the guins thudded intermittently and our aeroplanes wheeled overhead. The chief impression made on me is that of the relatively great number of the German dead. We know that out casualties are light, and believe that the enemy’s were heavy, and never before on any battlefield have I seen so great an excess of German dead over ours. I am not exaggerating when I say that in that part of the field which I explored, which was that traversed by the Canadians yesterday, there were certainly seven or eight and, I think, 10 German dead for one Canadian. I regret that I did not make actual count, but I spoke to men who were busy on salvage work, and their impression was the same as mine.
Even apart from the number of prisoners taken, there is no manner of doubt that the German casualties vastly exceeded ours. The battlefield, which is practically the whole of the great Santerre Plateau, is an extraordinary sight. It is a wide expanse of rich, level farm land, destitute of hedges or buildings, and the crops were already in the ground before the German advance at the end of March drove the cultivators away. Without attention the crops have grown and ripened, much more free from weeds than one would expect. There is field upon field of wheat, oats, and barley now ready for harvest, and well worth harvesting. There are many acres of clover which should have been cut before, but still blossoms, and many butterflies, especially Swallowtails, pale Clouded-Yellows, and Painted Ladies, rose before one’s feet as one brushed through it. There are patches of potatoes, and at one patch beside the road a Canadian soldier, detailed from his unit for the purpose, was digging them; and they were an excellent crop, with five or six tubers to the root, and I saw individual potatoes five or six inches long, well-shaped and clean. The man during the morning had already tied up two good sackfuls, and was at work on a third. And this is all ground which yesterday was well behind the German lines.
SANTERRE PLATEAU
Of course the crops are intersected with paths by which the enemy troops came up to the trenches. They are pitted with shell-holes and scarred with trench lines and machine-gun positions, and barbed wire is strung through them; while yesterday our Tanks made broad highways through the grain crops, clover, and potatoes alike. The waving grain especially hides gruesome things, for the Germans never seem to have searched the ground, or else they do not care, and one finds hidden among the ripe corn dead German bodies which have lain there in the open for months.
The great interest, however, is not in the old dead, but in the new battle. Santerre Plateau is one, wide plain, where, between skeletons of what once wore pleasant villages, there is no obstruction to the view, so that the wreckage of an aeroplane lying on the ground or a stranded Tank makes a conspicuous landmark. Otherwise its flat expanse is alternate yellow grain or patches of clover and waste land gay with flowers - yarrow and scarlet poppies, blue chicory and scabious, and purple vetch. The growth is generally high enough to hide the trench parapets and so forth, so that in the wide view little of these appears; but as you move about you find the whole surface scarred with bits of trenches and machine-gun posts and rifle pits.
The Germans had expended immense labour on making the ground defensible. The trenches are mostly poor and much inferior to the ordinary German trench, and the belts of wire are nowhere very deep. Many machine-gun posts and rifle pits for snipers are most makeshift in character. There are dugouts no bigger than graves. I estimated some to be no more than three-feet deep, three wide, and less than six long, in which snipers lived and evidently slept. Some were camouflaged with sheets of corrugated iron, others with bits of tarpaulin, in either case the top being strewn with grass, presumably plucked fresh each night for the following day, for on those which I saw it was still green. In places small shell holes made by our field guns have been deepened, but not widened, so that a man could stand almost upright in them. fire his rifle over the edge, and then crouch and be hidden. It is all makeshift and small work, but there is an enormous amount of it, so that the whole plain was organized for defence in depth, tier behind tier, a scattered bit of trench behind a post, and pit covering pit. I saw no concrete or any permanent work.
DEBRIS OF THE RETREAT
And everywhere is evidence of the completeness of the enemy rout. Small crescent-shaped trenches are everywhere guarded by one machine-gun, or two. The guns are still there, and three, five, or seven or eight German dead, and around, a litter of German tin helmets and rifles - and equipment. The amount of arms and material of all kinds left behind or thrown away is enormous. In other places are trench mortars left as the crew fled or was killed or captured. In scraps of woodland, which are few, or in the open field are batteries of field guns and bigger weapons left deserted with abundant ammunition still on hand, beside them. At one place the wreckage of a German Tank lies in the open. By the roadside are overturned lorries, hit by shells, and numbers of unburied horses. Overwhelming, also, is the. evidence of the much greater intensity of our artillery fire than theirs. The road over which I motored across the front line had hardly been hit at all behind our lines, but beyond it had been pounded and repaired and pounded again until progress became impossible; though other roads, I believe, are perfectly practicable to a much greater distance. Everywhere the country behind’ the German lines is shell-pitted vastly more than it is on our side.. So the woods which sheltered the batteries, all the villages, and other points, as well as. the formal trench lines, have been battered by our guns to a degree, far beyond anything the enemy has done to us.
One saw today strange sights. At one place a solitary German prisoner came walking towards us, very tired, alone, with a flapping overcoat and a long, rough staff for, a walking stick, and a water-bottle dangling an amazing caricature of a pilgrim. At another place lies the old wreckage of a British aeroplane, and close beside it a grave, which one expected to be that of the pilot of the machine, but on the cross is the name of a German flying-man, Lieutenant Marschutz Flammer, with the date May 19. What is the story of the British aeroplane and the German flier’s grave?
One spot there is with a small complication of trenches from which we took yesterday 100 prisoners. There are a score or so of dead and the body of an officer lying by a machine-gun, and all the equipment of those we took prisoner is scattered around in extraordinary confusion. If the. War Museum’ desires a sample of every article in use by the German Army today it can gather them on Santerre Plateau and anyone with a taste for souvenirs could carry them away by wagon-loads - rifles, bayonets, grenades, cartridges, tin hats, overcoats, and every item of clothing; entrenching tools, and piles of stanchions for barbed wire, and every conceivable article of camp use; and in every trench and hole a litter of letters, and books, and torn papers, and playing cards, and picture postcards, and an amazing welter of all the things a soldier could have or use flung away as the men fled, or left behind as -they rose to surrender or were killed. And in all this expanse one would see, perhaps, only half a dozen figures moving about. The guns go on pounding, and the aeroplanes stream and circle overhead. Otherwise it is a desert without life, but strewn with litter like a strand the tide has left. The weather continues fine.
Today very fierce fighting has been going on about Chipilly, there the German positions have given some trouble to our left flank on the immediate south side of the river, and I understand early this afternoon that this area is in our hands. Undoubtedly there is stern work in hand here, between the Ancre and the Somme, and the Germans fight desperately to maintain their hold of the high ground on the north side of the latter river.
SOME WONDERFUL DOINGS
At several places the cars caught both mechanical and horse-drawn transport on the roads and shot the horses and took the men prisoners.
One car attacked a train on the railway and set it on fire and wrecked it. Another found a certain village unwakened to the presence of danger and went through the streets shooting through the windows at one house and finding an officers’ mess at a meal. Yet another, near Framerville, found itself among hutments, which it discovered to be a Corps Headquarters. It shot down some Corps Staff officers and others and poured bullets into the huts. Then it heard that some part of the Staff had escaped along the road towards Peronne, so started after them and hunted them along the road, scattering them into the woods. How many of the Corps Staff were killed, or what happened to the corps commander, is not known.
GERMAN OFFICER’S LIES
Of prisoners I have myself seen many thousands. One corps had over 4,600 through its cage in the first 24 hours. I visited the cage this morning soon after dawn, and the Staff had been at work all night. A column of 1,000 was just leaving, being marched along the road in column of route to be taken farther back, and there were still 3,000 in the cage itself. They kept on clearing them in batches all the morning, but when I passed again at noon the cage was as full as ever, and a few hundred more were just arriving.
One of the more notable prisoners is a regimental commander (of whom this corps has taken two, besides many other officers), who when he was taken tried to hide his papers by thrusting them into his breeches down to his knees. There, however, they made a bulge which could not be overlooked. When questioned, he denied there was anything there, and was furious at his honour being questioned. Finally, after warning, it was necessary to search him, which was done as courteously as possible, and the papers were recovered, while he swore horribly all the time, reviling the coarseness of the brutal English nation and their utter lack of courtesy to a distinguished German officer.
Another corps has got at least 4,000 prisoner, and probably many more. Among interesting lots in this cage is a party of 500 Saxons who were caught in a train which was intercepted as it was coming up to the front. All the prisoners whom I have seen have been good-looking lots of men, much above the average of those taken recently, though containing a certain proportion of extreme youths and weaklings. Of the booty taken besides prisoners, it is hopeless yet to make any estimate, for guns and machine-guns and material of all kinds are strewn all over the battlefields.
BATTLEFIELD VISITED
I have myself spent much of the day from very early morning until noon walking over parts of the battlefield, having first the extraordinary experience of being able to pass in a motor-car not only over what yesterday was No Man’s Land, but over the trenches of the front German system, and from my seat in the car to look down on the enemy dead below. When the road became impassable by reason of the shell holes made by our guns one could stray at large over the great deserted plain, while the guins thudded intermittently and our aeroplanes wheeled overhead. The chief impression made on me is that of the relatively great number of the German dead. We know that out casualties are light, and believe that the enemy’s were heavy, and never before on any battlefield have I seen so great an excess of German dead over ours. I am not exaggerating when I say that in that part of the field which I explored, which was that traversed by the Canadians yesterday, there were certainly seven or eight and, I think, 10 German dead for one Canadian. I regret that I did not make actual count, but I spoke to men who were busy on salvage work, and their impression was the same as mine.
Even apart from the number of prisoners taken, there is no manner of doubt that the German casualties vastly exceeded ours. The battlefield, which is practically the whole of the great Santerre Plateau, is an extraordinary sight. It is a wide expanse of rich, level farm land, destitute of hedges or buildings, and the crops were already in the ground before the German advance at the end of March drove the cultivators away. Without attention the crops have grown and ripened, much more free from weeds than one would expect. There is field upon field of wheat, oats, and barley now ready for harvest, and well worth harvesting. There are many acres of clover which should have been cut before, but still blossoms, and many butterflies, especially Swallowtails, pale Clouded-Yellows, and Painted Ladies, rose before one’s feet as one brushed through it. There are patches of potatoes, and at one patch beside the road a Canadian soldier, detailed from his unit for the purpose, was digging them; and they were an excellent crop, with five or six tubers to the root, and I saw individual potatoes five or six inches long, well-shaped and clean. The man during the morning had already tied up two good sackfuls, and was at work on a third. And this is all ground which yesterday was well behind the German lines.
SANTERRE PLATEAU
Of course the crops are intersected with paths by which the enemy troops came up to the trenches. They are pitted with shell-holes and scarred with trench lines and machine-gun positions, and barbed wire is strung through them; while yesterday our Tanks made broad highways through the grain crops, clover, and potatoes alike. The waving grain especially hides gruesome things, for the Germans never seem to have searched the ground, or else they do not care, and one finds hidden among the ripe corn dead German bodies which have lain there in the open for months.
The great interest, however, is not in the old dead, but in the new battle. Santerre Plateau is one, wide plain, where, between skeletons of what once wore pleasant villages, there is no obstruction to the view, so that the wreckage of an aeroplane lying on the ground or a stranded Tank makes a conspicuous landmark. Otherwise its flat expanse is alternate yellow grain or patches of clover and waste land gay with flowers - yarrow and scarlet poppies, blue chicory and scabious, and purple vetch. The growth is generally high enough to hide the trench parapets and so forth, so that in the wide view little of these appears; but as you move about you find the whole surface scarred with bits of trenches and machine-gun posts and rifle pits.
The Germans had expended immense labour on making the ground defensible. The trenches are mostly poor and much inferior to the ordinary German trench, and the belts of wire are nowhere very deep. Many machine-gun posts and rifle pits for snipers are most makeshift in character. There are dugouts no bigger than graves. I estimated some to be no more than three-feet deep, three wide, and less than six long, in which snipers lived and evidently slept. Some were camouflaged with sheets of corrugated iron, others with bits of tarpaulin, in either case the top being strewn with grass, presumably plucked fresh each night for the following day, for on those which I saw it was still green. In places small shell holes made by our field guns have been deepened, but not widened, so that a man could stand almost upright in them. fire his rifle over the edge, and then crouch and be hidden. It is all makeshift and small work, but there is an enormous amount of it, so that the whole plain was organized for defence in depth, tier behind tier, a scattered bit of trench behind a post, and pit covering pit. I saw no concrete or any permanent work.
DEBRIS OF THE RETREAT
And everywhere is evidence of the completeness of the enemy rout. Small crescent-shaped trenches are everywhere guarded by one machine-gun, or two. The guns are still there, and three, five, or seven or eight German dead, and around, a litter of German tin helmets and rifles - and equipment. The amount of arms and material of all kinds left behind or thrown away is enormous. In other places are trench mortars left as the crew fled or was killed or captured. In scraps of woodland, which are few, or in the open field are batteries of field guns and bigger weapons left deserted with abundant ammunition still on hand, beside them. At one place the wreckage of a German Tank lies in the open. By the roadside are overturned lorries, hit by shells, and numbers of unburied horses. Overwhelming, also, is the. evidence of the much greater intensity of our artillery fire than theirs. The road over which I motored across the front line had hardly been hit at all behind our lines, but beyond it had been pounded and repaired and pounded again until progress became impossible; though other roads, I believe, are perfectly practicable to a much greater distance. Everywhere the country behind’ the German lines is shell-pitted vastly more than it is on our side.. So the woods which sheltered the batteries, all the villages, and other points, as well as. the formal trench lines, have been battered by our guns to a degree, far beyond anything the enemy has done to us.
One saw today strange sights. At one place a solitary German prisoner came walking towards us, very tired, alone, with a flapping overcoat and a long, rough staff for, a walking stick, and a water-bottle dangling an amazing caricature of a pilgrim. At another place lies the old wreckage of a British aeroplane, and close beside it a grave, which one expected to be that of the pilot of the machine, but on the cross is the name of a German flying-man, Lieutenant Marschutz Flammer, with the date May 19. What is the story of the British aeroplane and the German flier’s grave?
One spot there is with a small complication of trenches from which we took yesterday 100 prisoners. There are a score or so of dead and the body of an officer lying by a machine-gun, and all the equipment of those we took prisoner is scattered around in extraordinary confusion. If the. War Museum’ desires a sample of every article in use by the German Army today it can gather them on Santerre Plateau and anyone with a taste for souvenirs could carry them away by wagon-loads - rifles, bayonets, grenades, cartridges, tin hats, overcoats, and every item of clothing; entrenching tools, and piles of stanchions for barbed wire, and every conceivable article of camp use; and in every trench and hole a litter of letters, and books, and torn papers, and playing cards, and picture postcards, and an amazing welter of all the things a soldier could have or use flung away as the men fled, or left behind as -they rose to surrender or were killed. And in all this expanse one would see, perhaps, only half a dozen figures moving about. The guns go on pounding, and the aeroplanes stream and circle overhead. Otherwise it is a desert without life, but strewn with litter like a strand the tide has left. The weather continues fine.
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August 15, 1918
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During my visit I have
conferred a number of Victoria Crosses for deeds of valour and
self-sacrifice, the records of which fill my heart with pride and veneration
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| The following letter has been sent by the King to Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig: France, Aug 13, 1918. |
My dear Field Marshal,
At the beginning of the fifth year of the war I again have had the pleasure of being with my Armies. Writing to you after my last visit on March 30, and alluding to the then necessary withdrawal from certain of our positions, I dwelt upon the impression made upon me by the splendid spirit of the troops which I saw during those days. Subsequent events have given ample proof that this was a true impression. For never since that time has the spirit of the Army faltered. We have seen it reasserting itself, and carrying to a triumphant issue the operations of the past week. On these happy results I most warmly congratulate you and the troops that have fought so magnificently under your command.
I gratefully recognize that this high moral is in part the outcome of a hearty cooperation between the fighting Army and the great organizations behind the line; the transport service by land and sea; and those vast industries in which the men and women at home maintain the supplies of food and munitions of war. I have heard on all sides of the inestimable value of the Machine-gun Corps in the fighting line, and this was brought home to me by the fine appearance of detachments which I saw in the different areas.
I have inspected detachments of the Royal Air Force. Its prowess and established superiority over the enemy make me proud to be the General-in-Chief of this last creation in the fighting forces of the world. It was specially satisfactory that I was able to see the work of the Tank Corps, and thus to form some slight idea of the part which this wondrous and steadily developing invention has played in the present victorious battle. I gained for the first time an insight into the thorough and practical manner in which the Forestry Department is carrying out its varied duties. It was a pleasure to me to find from the admirable condition of the horses and mules of the various units I inspected that the new Armies fully uphold our national reputation as good horse-masters.
During my visit I have conferred a number of Victoria Crosses for deeds of valour and self-sacrifice, the records of which fill my heart with pride and veneration. Of the hospitals, their efficiency, skill, devotion, and untiring efforts of the staffs, I cannot speak in too high praise. I realize with thankfulness all that is done for the spiritual welfare of the troops by the chaplains of the different denominations.
I am glad to find that the Army Commanders appreciate the importance of affording means for the amusement and diversion of the troops in their leisure time, and that every effort to this end is undertaken by the authorities and by private help. I return home with feelings of profound admiration of our Armies, convinced that, in union with those of the Allied nations, we shall, with God’s help, secure a victorious peace worthy of the noble sacrifices made - a peace which must be a surety to coming generations against sufferings such as the present world has endured throughout these years of relentless war.
Believe me, very sincerely yours,
(Signed) GEORGE RI.
I have inspected detachments of the Royal Air Force. Its prowess and established superiority over the enemy make me proud to be the General-in-Chief of this last creation in the fighting forces of the world. It was specially satisfactory that I was able to see the work of the Tank Corps, and thus to form some slight idea of the part which this wondrous and steadily developing invention has played in the present victorious battle. I gained for the first time an insight into the thorough and practical manner in which the Forestry Department is carrying out its varied duties. It was a pleasure to me to find from the admirable condition of the horses and mules of the various units I inspected that the new Armies fully uphold our national reputation as good horse-masters.
I am glad to find that the Army Commanders appreciate the importance of affording means for the amusement and diversion of the troops in their leisure time, and that every effort to this end is undertaken by the authorities and by private help. I return home with feelings of profound admiration of our Armies, convinced that, in union with those of the Allied nations, we shall, with God’s help, secure a victorious peace worthy of the noble sacrifices made - a peace which must be a surety to coming generations against sufferings such as the present world has endured throughout these years of relentless war.
Believe me, very sincerely yours,
(Signed) GEORGE RI.
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