Western front. The enemy had lost at least half a million men; and the
Allied loss, though great, had been substantially less. Our new armies
had gloriously proved themselves, and the legend of German
invincibility was gone.

So much for the first-fruits. The _ultimate results_ are only now
beginning to appear in the steady retreat of German forces, unable to
stand another attack, on the same line, now that the protection of the
winter pause is over. "How far are we from our guns?" I ask the officer
beside me. And, as I speak, a flash to the north-east on the higher
ground towards Pozières lights up the grey distance. My companion
measures the hillside with his eyes. "About 1,000 yards." Their
objective now is a temporary German line in front of Bapaume. But we
shall be in Bapaume in a few days. And then?

_Death_--_Victory_--_Work_; these are the three leading impressions that
rise and take symbolic shape amid these scenes. Let me turn now to the
last. For anyone with the common share of heart and imagination, the
first thought here must be of the dead--the next, of swarming life. For
these slopes and roads and ruins are again alive with men. Thousands and
thousands of our soldiers are here, many of them going up to or coming
back from the line, while others are working--working--incessantly at
all that is meant by "advance" and "consolidation."

The transformation of a line of battle into an efficient "back of the
Army" requires, it seems, an amazing amount of human energy,
contrivance, and endurance. And what we see now is, of course, a second
or third stage. First of all there is the "clearing up" of the actual
battlefield. For this the work of the men now at work here--R.E.'s and
Labour battalions--is too skilled and too valuable. It is done by