Their
generals believed in common sense applied to war, and not in high
mysteries and secret rites which cannot be known outside the circle of
initiation. I was impressed by General Currie, whom I met for the
first time in that winter of 1915-16, and wrote at the time that I saw
in him "a leader of men who in open warfare might win great victories
by doing the common-sense thing rapidly and decisively, to the
surprise of an enemy working by elaborate science. He would, I think,
astound them by the simplicity of his smashing stroke." Those words of
mine were fulfilled--on the day when the Canadians helped to break the
Drocourt-Queant line, and when they captured Cambrai, with English
troops on their right, who shared their success. General Currie, who
became the Canadian Corps Commander, did not spare his men. He led
them forward whatever the cost, but there was something great and
terrible in his simplicity and sureness of judgment, and this real--
estate agent (as he was before he took to soldiering) was undoubtedly
a man of strong ability, free from those trammels of red tape and
tradition which swathed round so many of our own leaders.
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