His
trouble on the Somme was that the enemy did not permit open warfare,
but made a siege of it, with defensive lines all the way back to
Bapaume, and every hillock a machine-gun fortress and every wood a
death-trap. We were always preparing for a "break-through" for cavalry
pursuit, and the cavalry were always being massed behind the lines and
then turned back again, after futile waiting, encumbering the roads.
"The bloodbath of the Somme," as the Germans called it, was ours as
well as theirs, and scores of times when I saw the dead bodies of our
men lying strewn over those dreadful fields, after desperate and, in
the end, successful attacks through the woods of death--Mametz Wood,
Delville Wood, Trones Wood, Bernafay Wood, High Wood, and over the
Pozieres ridge to Courcellette and Martinpuich--I thought of Rawlinson
in his chateau in Querrieux, scheming out the battles and ordering up
new masses of troops to the great assault over the bodies of their
dead. . . Well, it is not for generals to sit down with their heads in
their hands, bemoaning slaughter, or to shed tears over their maps
when directing battle.
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