"waiting game" which for a time the British Armies were called to
play, men did the most impossible and heroic things. Gun detachments
held their posts till every man was killed or wounded; infantry who
had neither rest nor sleep for days together, fought "back to back in
the trenches, shooting both to front and rear." Occasional confusion,
even local panic, occasional loss of communication and misunderstanding
of orders, occasional incompetence and stupidity there must be in such
a vast backward sweep of battle, but skill, purpose, superb bravery
were never lacking in any portion of the field; and the German
_communiqués_ exultantly announcing the "total defeat of the British
Armies" may be compared, _mutatis mutandis_, with the reports from
German Headquarters just before the first battle of the Marne.

"The defeat of the English is complete," said the German High Command
in the latter days of August, 1914. "The English Army is retreating in
the most complete disorder.... The British have been completely
defeated to the north of St. Quentin"--and so on. And yet a week
later, as General Maurice, with much fresh evidence, has lately shown,
the Army thus disposed of on paper had rejoicingly turned upon von
Kluck, and was playing a vital part in the great victory of the Marne.
So last spring, the losses and withdrawals of a vaster defensive
action, coupled with the stubborn and tenacious hold of the British
Army, last March and April, were the inevitable and heroic prelude to
the victorious recoil of August, and the final battles of the war.
Inevitable, because no forethought or exertion on the British side
could have averted the German onslaught, determined as it was by the
breakdown of the whole Eastern front of the war, and the letting loose
upon the Western front of immense forces previously held by the
Russian armies. These forces, after the Russian _débâcle_, were
released against us, week by week, till in March the balance of