The agony of the individual soldier would not trouble them. There is
no war without agony. But the psychology of masses of men had to be
considered, because it affects the efficiency of the machine.
The German General Staff on the western front was becoming seriously
alarmed by the declining morale of its infantry under the increasing
strain of the British attacks, and adopted stern measures to cure it.
But it could not hope to cure the heaps of German dead who were lying
on the battlefields, nor the maimed men who were being carried back to
the dressing stations, nor to bring back the prisoners taken in droves
by the French and British troops.
Before the attack on the Flers line, the capture of Thiepval, and the
German debacle at Beaumont Hamel, in November, the enemy's command was
already filled with a grave anxiety at the enormous losses of its
fighting strength; was compelled to adopt new expedients for
increasing the number of its divisions. It was forced to withdraw
troops badly needed on other fronts, and the successive shocks of the
British offensive reached as far as Germany itself, so that the whole
of its recruiting system had to be revised to fill up the gaps torn
out of the German ranks.
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