They were not cunning so far as I could see, nor in the judgment of the men under their command, but simple and straightforward gentlemen who said “once more unto the breach,” and sent up new battering-rams by brigades and divisions. There was no evidence that I could find of high directing brains choosing the weakest spot in the enemy’s armor and piercing it with a sharp sword, or avoiding a direct assault against the enemy’s most formidable positions and leaping upon him from some unguarded way. Perhaps that was impossible in the conditions of modern warfare and the limitations of the British front until the arrival of the tanks, which, for a long time, were wasted in the impassable bogs of Flanders, where their steel skeletons still lie rusting as a proof of heroic efforts vainly used. Possible or not, and rare genius alone could prove it one way or another, it appeared to the onlooker, as well as to the soldier who carried out commands that our method of warfare was to search the map for a place which was strongest in the enemy’s lines, most difficult to attack, most powerfully defended, and then after due advertisement, not to take an unfair advantage of the enemy, to launch the assault.