against a line which recoiled indeed but never
broke, and was all the time filling up and strengthening from behind.
The losses inflicted on their immense reserves reacted on all the
subsequent fighting of the year, both on the Aisne and the Marne. And
when the British Armies had brought the huge attack to a
standstill--which for the centre and south of our line had been
already attained ten days after the storm broke--and knew the worst
that had happened or could happen to them; when the Australians had
recaptured Villers-Bretonneux; when the weeks passed and the offensive
ceased; when all gaps in our ranks were filled by the rush of
reinforcements from home, and the American Army poured steadily across
the Atlantic, the tension and peril of the spring passed steadily into
the confident strength and--expectation of the summer. The British
Army had held against an attack which could never be repeated, and the
future was with the Allies.

Let us remember that at no time in our fighting withdrawal, either on
the Somme or on the Lys, was there "anything approaching a break-down
of command, or a failure in morale." So the Field Marshal. On the
other hand, all over the vast battle-field--in every part of the hard
"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
_communiques_ 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,