Page:Generals of the British Army.djvu/9



HIS small portrait gallery of British generals represents, in fair epitome, the drama of British history. Each of the officers who figure here has behind him a varied story of fighting in strange places, under all sorts of conditions, as well as in the tense atmosphere of modern scientific war; each of them has first had to struggle against heavy odds before arriving at the conditions which at present obtain on the Western front. Infantrymen, cavalrymen, artillerists, they have come through a fiery trial to command large bodies of troops in the most terrible struggle of our history.

The part of their story that is concerned in this war is memorable, and may we not say it, memorably fine? For these are not the leaders of that vast host whose shadow has hung over Europe for so many years, whose numbers and efficiency have been the evil dream of the international situation; but of that small contingent that, for an ideal, took the field light-heartedly, against the vast German horde. Even the Belgian army was more numerous than the Expeditionary Force that struck its first blow before Mons; and these leaders have memories of the days when it was the equal in nothing, save undaunted courage and tactical ability, of the army in whose path it stood.

They have seen every type of fighting. The war of movements with its swift changes and long hazards was their first experience, an experience that none of those who took part in it will ever forget. For some terrible days the British army stood between the Allies and disaster; but the experience it bought was handed on to the enemy in a series of engagements, the lesson of which he softens by proclaiming the first seven divisions to have been unique. The admission is sufficiently revealing, for the handful of troops ought to have been crushed at Mons; or, escaping thence, should have been penned into Maubeuge; or,