The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend by Mrs. Humphry Ward
page 84 of 163 (51%)
page 84 of 163 (51%)
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general English public supposes that the Tommies, when their days in the
home camps are done, get "somehow" conveyed to the front, being "somehow" equipped, fed, clothed, nursed, and mended, and sent on their way across France in interminable lines of trains. As to the details of the process, it rarely troubles its head. The fact is, however, that the work of the great supply bases abroad, of the various Corps and Services connected with them--Army Ordnance, Army Service, Army Medical, railway and motor transport--is a desperately interesting study; and during the past eighteen months, under the "I.G.C."--Inspector-General of Communications--has developed some of the best brains in the Army. Two days spent under the guidance of the Base Commandant or an officer of his staff among the docks and warehouses of a great French port, among the huts of its reinforcement camp, which contains more men than Aldershot before August, 1914, or in its workshops of the Army Ordnance Corps, gave me my first experience of the organising power that has gone to these departments of the war. The General in command of the base was there in the first weeks of the struggle and during the great retreat. He retired with his staff to Nantes--leaving only a broken motor-car behind him!--just about the time that the French Government betook itself to Bordeaux. But in September he was back again, and the building-up process began, which has since known neither stop nor stay. That the commercial needs of a great French port should have been able to accommodate themselves as they have to the military needs of the British Army speaks loudly for the tact and good feeling on both sides. The task has not been at all times an easy one; and I could not help thinking as we walked together through the crowded scene, that the tone and temper of the able man beside me--his admiration, simply expressed, yet evidently profound, for the French spirit in the war, and for the heroic unity of the country through all ranks and classes, accounted for a great deal. In the presence |
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