position in which she is able to set enormous weapons against us. It is the Battle of the Somme above all that teaches us this.”
In every great action there is a major purpose—a reasoned and calculated purpose which takes no account of the accidents of fortune. But in most actions there come sudden strokes of luck which turn the scale. For such strokes a General has a right to hope, but on them he dare not build. Marengo, Waterloo, Chancellorsville—most of the great battles of older times—showed these good gifts of destiny. But in the elaborate and mechanical warfare of to-day they come rarely, and in the Battle of the Somme they did not fall to the lot of the British Commander-in-Chief. We did what we set out to do; step by step we drove our way through the German defences; but it was all done by hard and stubborn fighting, without any bounty from capricious fortune. The Germans had claimed that their line was impregnable; we broke it again and again. They had counted on their artillery machine; we crippled and outmatched it. They had decried the fighting stuff of our New Army; we showed that it was more than a match for their Guards and Brandenburgers. All these things we did—soberly and patiently in the British fashion. Our major purpose was attained. We had applied a steady, continuous, and unrelenting pressure to a large section of the German front. It was not the recapture of territory that we sought, but the weakening of the numbers, matériel, and moral of the enemy.
The fall of winter, with its storms and sodden ground and short days, marked the close of a stage, but not of the battle. Advances might be fewer, the territory gained might be less, but the offensive did not slacken. Still, on a front of nearly forty miles, the Allied pressure was continuously maintained by means of their artillery and other services, and the sapping of the enemy’s strength went on without ceasing. The hardships of winter would be felt more acutely by forces which had been outmatched in the long five months’ battle. Those who judged of success only by the ground occupied might grow restive during these days of apparent inaction, but the soldier knew that they represented blows struck at the enemy which, in effect, were not less deadly than a spectacular advance. The major purpose was still proceeding the German front. It was not the recapture of territory that we sought, but the weakening of the numbers, materiel, and moral of the enemy.
The fall of winter, with its storms and sodden ground and short days, marked the close of a stage, but not of the battle. Advances might be fewer, the territory gained might be less, but the offensive did not slacken. Still, on a front of nearly forty miles, the Allied pressure was continuously maintained by means of their artillery and other services, and the sapping of the enemy’s strength went on without ceasing. The hardships of winter would be felt more acutely by forces which had been outmatched in the long five months’ battle. Those who judged of success only by the ground occupied might grow restive during these days of apparent inaction, but the soldier knew that they represented blows struck at the enemy which, in effect, were not less deadly than a spectacular advance. The major purpose was still proceeding.
NELSON’S HISTORY OF THE WAR
(VOLUMES I-V)
NELSON’S HISTORY OF THE WAR VOLUME I
NELSON’S HISTORY OF THE WAR VOLUME II
NELSON’S HISTORY OF THE WAR VOLUME III
NELSON’S HISTORY OF THE WAR VOLUME IV
NELSON’S HISTORY OF THE WAR VOLUME V
I. The Western Theatre of War.
NELSON’S HISTORY OF THE WAR
VOLUME I
CHAPTER I. THE BREAKING OF THE BARRIERS.
CHAPTER II. THE STRENGTH OF THE COMBATANTS.
CHAPTER IV. THE MUSTER OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE.
CHAPTER V. THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR AT SEA.
CHAPTER VI. THE STAND OF BELGIUM.
CHAPTER VII. THE EASTERN THEATRE OF WAR.
CHAPTER VIII. THE FIRST CLASH OF THE GREAT ARMIES.
APPENDIX II. GERMAN MILITARY POLICY.
APPENDIX III. A SHORT MILITARY GLOSSARY.
PREFACE
Mr. John Buchan has asked me to write a short preface to his history of the war, and I owe so much pleasure to his books that I cannot refuse this pitiful instalment of return.
The definite history of this war is not now to be written, or for many a day. Still it may be possible to disentangle from this struggle of armed nations over hundreds of miles some explicit narrative which may help all of us who are hungering for help and guidance.
At present we do not authentically know even the subtle causes which produced this
