, strive to sacrifice its wealth and
its material as far as possible, rather than its human lives.

"As to incidents, you asked me for some recollections of those
which had particularly impressed themselves upon me. It is hard to
choose. The Third Battle of Ypres, to which I have referred,
brought out many wonderful deeds of deliberate self-sacrifice.
Take the following:

"In one case a section of three tanks were the only ones available
to support an infantry attack. The ground over which they had to
proceed was in a terrible state, and their chances of success were
small. Their only chance of success, in fact, depended on their
finding in the early dawn, and in the fog of battle, one single
crossing over the marshy stream. The enemy front line was actually
in front of this stream. The officer commanding the section
considered that the only way of finding the route was on foot.
With the knowledge that this meant certain death, he led his
section of tanks through the bad ground under very heavy fire. He
found the bridge safely, and was killed as he reached it. The
tanks went on and succeeded in their mission, and many infantry
lives were saved by this act of sacrifice."

Then take the case of the incident of General Elles at the First
Battle of Cambrai. As my correspondent of the Tank Corps, who was in
the battle, says: "In modern warfare the place of the General
Commanding is almost invariably in the rear of his troops, in a
position where communications are good, and where he can employ his
reserves at the right moment. At this battle all the available Tanks
(about four hundred) were being used. There were no reserves. So the
General Commanding led the attack, flying the Tank Corps flag. He came
safely through the attack, which undoubtedly owed some measure of its
success to the inspiration which this act gave to the troops."

A quiet account!--given by a man who was certainly not very far away
from his General in the affair. Let me supplement it a little by the
story of Mr. Philip Gibbs, who seems to have seen as much as any
correspondent might, of this wonderful "show" of the Tanks.

"For strange, unusual drama, far beyond the most fantastic
imagination, this attack on the Hindenburg line before Cambrai has
never been approached on the Western Front; and the first act began
when the Tanks moved forward, before the dawn, towards the long