It was in that last phase of open warfare that Rawlinson
showed his qualities of generalship and once again that driving
purpose which was his in the Somme battles, but achieved only by
prodigious cost of life.
XIX
Of General Allenby, commanding the Third Army before he was succeeded
by Gen. Sir Julian Byng and went to his triumph in Palestine, I knew
very little except by hearsay. He went by the name of "The Bull,"
because of his burly size and deep voice. The costly fighting that
followed the battle of Arras on April 9th along the glacis of the
Scarpe did not reveal high generalship. There were many young
officers--and some divisional generals who complained bitterly of
attacks ordered without sufficient forethought, and the stream of
casualties which poured back, day by day, with tales of tragic
happenings did not inspire one with a sense of some high purpose
behind it all, or some presiding genius.
General Byng, "Bungo Byng," as he was called by his troops, won the
admiration of the Canadian Corps which he commanded, and afterward, in
the Cambrai advance of November, '17, he showed daring of conception
and gained the first striking surprise in the war by novel methods of
attack--spoiled by the quick come-back of the enemy under Von Marwitz
and our withdrawal from Bourlon Wood, Masnieres, and Marcoing, and
other places, after desperate fighting.
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