In the battles of the Somme they attacked isolated objectives on narrow fronts, so that the enemy swept our men with fire by artillery concentrated from all points, instead of having to disperse his fire during a general attack on a wide front. In the days of trench warfare, when the enemy artillery was much stronger than ours, and when his infantry strength was enormously greater, our generals insisted upon the British troops maintaining an “aggressive” attitude, with the result that they were shot to pieces, instead of adopting, like the French, a quiet and waiting attitude until the time came for a sharp and terrible blow. The battles of Neuve Chapelle, Fertubert, and Loos, in 1915, cost us thousands of dead and gave us no gain of any account; and both generalship and staff-work were, in the opinion of most officers who know anything of those battles, ghastly.

After all, our generals had to learn their lesson, like the private soldier, and the young battalion officer, in conditions of warfare which had never been seen before⁠—and it was bad for the private soldier and the young battalion officer, who died so they might learn. As time went on staff-work improved, and British generalship was less rash in optimism and less rigid in ideas.