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But apart from that the whole time-table of the battle was, as it now
appears, fatally wrong. To move divisions along narrow roads requires
an immense amount of time, even if the roads are clear, and those
roads toward Loos were crowded with the transport and gun-limbers of
the assaulting troops. To move them in daylight to the trenches meant
inevitable loss of life and almost certain demoralization under the
enemy's gun-fire.
"Between 11 A.M. and 12 noon the central brigade of these divisions
filed past me at Bethune and Noeux-les-Mines, respectively," wrote Sir
John French. It was not possible for them to reach our old trenches
until 4 P.M. It was Gen. Sir Frederick Maurice, the Chief of Staff,
who revealed that fact to me afterward in an official explanation, and
it was confirmed by battalion officers of the 24th Division whom I
met.
That time-table led to disaster. By eight o'clock in the morning there
were Scots on Hill 70. They had been told to go "all out," with the
promise that the ground they gained would be consolidated by following
troops.


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