But the machinery of their defense was crumbling. Many of their guns
had worn out, and could not be replaced quickly enough. Many batteries
had been knocked out in their emplacements along the line of Bazentin
and Longueval before the artillery was drawn back to Grand-court and a
new line of safety. Battalion commanders clamored for greater supplies
of hand-grenades, intrenching-tools, trench-mortars, signal rockets,
and all kinds of fighting material enormously in excess of all
previous requirements.
The difficulties of dealing with the wounded, who littered the
battlefields and choked the roads with the traffic of ambulances,
became increasingly severe, owing to the dearth of horses for
transport and the longer range of British guns which had been brought
far forward.
The German General Staff studied its next lines of defense away
through Courcelette, Martinpuich, Lesboeufs, Morval, and Combles, and
they did not look too good, but with luck and the courage of German
soldiers, and the exhaustion--surely those fellows were exhausted!--of
British troops--good enough.
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