There was a
babies' creche in an upper room, and a German lady was tending thirty
little ones whose chorus of "Guten Tag! Guten Tag!" was like the
quacking of ducks.
"After to-morrow there will be no more milk for them," she said.
"And then?" I asked.
"And then many of them will die."
She wept a little. I thought of those other babies in Amiens, and of
the old Reverend Mother.
"How will God punish all this? Alas! it is the innocent who suffer for
the guilty."
Of those things General Ludendorff does not write in his Memoirs,
which deal with the strategy and machinery of war.
III
Sir Douglas Haig was not misled into the error of following up the
German retreat, across that devastated country, with masses of men. He
sent forward outposts to keep in touch with the German rear-guards and
prepared to deliver big blows at the Vimy Ridge and the lines round
Arras. This new battle by British troops was dictated by French
strategy rather than by ours. General Nivelle, the new generalissimo,
was organizing a great offensive in the Champagne and desired the
British army to strike first and keep on striking in order to engage
and exhaust German divisions until he was ready to launch his own
legions.
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