rit. A comrade
remembers one of his last sayings--a simple casual word: "I don't
expect to come through--but--it's worth it."

There one reaches the bed-rock of it all--the conviction of a just
cause. What would it avail us--this pride of victory, of organisation,
of science, to which these great despatches of our great
Commander-in-Chief bear witness, without that spiritual certainty
behind it all--the firm faith that England was fighting for the right,
and, God helping her, "could do no other."

CHAPTER IX

TANKS AND AEROPLANES

THE STAFF WORK OF THE WAR

I have quoted in the preceding chapter the warning words of Sir
Douglas Haig on the subject of "mechanical appliances." The gist of
them is that mechanical appliances can never replace men, and that the
history of tanks in the war shows that, useful as they have been,
their value depends always upon combination with both infantry and
artillery. So far from their doing away with artillery, the
Commander-in-Chief points out that the Battle of Amiens, August 8th,
in which the greatest force of tanks was used, and in which they were
most brilliantly successful, was "an action in which more artillery
ammunition was expended than in any action of similar dimensions in
the whole war."

The tank enthusiasts will clearly not be quite satisfied with so
measured a judgment! They point to the marked effect of the tanks on
the strategy of the last three months of the war, to the extraordinary
increase in the elements of mobility and surprise which their use made
possible, to the effect of them also on German opinion and _morale_,
and they believe that in any future war--if war there be!--they are
certain to play, not a subsidiary, but a commanding part.

One of the most distinguished officers of the Tank Corps, who was
wounded and decorated before he joined the corps, was severely wounded
twice while he belonged to the corps, and was an eye-witness of the
incidents he describes, allows me to print the following letter:

"You ask me for a short account of what tanks have done in the
war. In doing so, you set me a difficult problem! For three years
I have thought of practically nothing else but tanks, so that I
find it very difficult to deal with the subject briefly. However,
I will try.

"The basic idea and purpose of tanks is a very simple one: to save
infantry casualties. A new tank can be built in a few months; a
new soldier