The British
officers excuse themselves because, they plead, they are still
amateurs. "That is no reason," says the Frenchman, "why they should be
amateurish."
No Frenchman said as much as this to me, but their meaning was as plain
as daylight. I tackled one of my guides on this matter; I said that it
was the plain duty of the French military people to criticise British
military methods sharply if they thought they were wrong. "It is not
easy," he said. "Many British officers do not think they have anything
to learn. And English people do not like being told things. What could
we do? We could hardly send a French officer or so to your headquarters
in a tutorial capacity. You have to do things in your own way." When
I tried to draw General Castelnau into this dangerous question by
suggesting that we might borrow a French general or so, he would say
only, "There is only one way to learn war, and that is to make war."
When it was too late, in the lift, I thought of the answer to that.
There is only one way to make war, and that is by the sacrifice of
incapables and the rapid promotion of able men. If old and tried types
fail now, new types must be sought. But to do that we want a standard of
efficiency. We want a conception of intellectual quality in performance
that is still lacking....
M. Joseph Reinach, in whose company I visited the French part of the
Somme front, was full of a scheme, which he has since published, for the
breaking up and recomposition of the French and British armies into a
series of composite armies which would blend the magnificent British
manhood and material with French science and military experience.
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