They fought with a desperate courage, holding on
to positions in rearguard actions when our guns were slashing them and
when our men were getting near to them, making us pay a heavy price
for every little copse or gully or section of trench, and above all
serving their machine-guns at La Boisselle, Ovillers, above Fricourt,
round Contalmaison, and at all points of their gradual retreat, with a
wonderful obstinacy, until they were killed or captured. But fresh
waves of British soldiers followed those who were checked or broken.
After the first week of battle the German General Staff had learned
the truth about the qualities of those British "New Armies" which had
been mocked and caricatured in German comic papers. They learned that
these "amateur soldiers" had the qualities of the finest troops in the
world--not only extreme valor, but skill and cunning, not only a great
power of endurance under the heaviest fire, but a spirit of attack
which was terrible in its effect. They were fierce bayonet fighters.
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