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.
XVI
General Haldane was friendly to the war correspondents--he had been
something of the kind himself in earlier days--and we were welcomed at
his headquarters, both when he commanded the 3d Division and afterward
when he became commander of the 6th Corps. I thought during the war,
and I think now, that he had more intellect and "quality" than many of
our other generals. A tall, strongly built man, with a distinction of
movement and gesture, not "stocky" or rigid, but nervous and restless,
he gave one a sense of power and intensity of purpose. There was a
kind of slow-burning fire in him--a hatred of the enemy which was not
weakened in him by any mercy, and a consuming rage, as it appeared to
me, against inefficiency in high places, injustice of which he may
have felt himself to be the victim, and restrictions upon his liberty
of command.
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