"But why," asks one of the men best qualified to speak in our
Army--"why use the words 'retreat' and 'disaster' at all?" They were
indeed commonly used at the time both in England and abroad, and have
been often used since about the fighting of the British Army last
March and April. Strictly speaking, my interlocutor suggests, neither
word is applicable. The British Army indeed fell back some thirty-five
miles on its southern front, till the German attack was finally stayed
before Amiens. The British centre stood firm from Arras to Béthune.
But in the north we had to yield almost all the ground gained in the
Salient the year before, and some that had never yet been in German
hands. We lost heavily in men and guns, and a shudder of alarm ran
through all the Allied countries.

Nevertheless what Europe was then witnessing--I am of course quoting
not any opinion of my own, to which I have no right, but what I have
gathered from those responsible men who were in the forefront of the
fighting--was in truth _a great defensive battle_, long and anxiously
foreseen, in which the German forces were double the British forces
opposed to them (64 to 32 divisions--73 to 32--and so on), while none
the less all that was vitally necessary to the Allied cause was
finally achieved by the British Army, against these huge odds.
Germany, in fact, made her last desperate effort a year ago to break
through the beleaguering British, forces, and failed. On our side
there was no real surprise, though our withdrawal was deeper and our
losses greater than had been foreseen. The troops themselves may have
been confident; it is the habit of gallant men. But the British
command knew well what it had to face, and had considered carefully
weeks beforehand where ground could be given--as in all probability it
would have to be given--with the least disadvantage. Some accidents,
if one may call them so, indeed there were--the thick white fog, for