t, on due respect to
officers as such; but everybody feels and knows that this is a mere
question of expediency. Men cannot act together unless some one
commands; but it does not follow that the man who gives the orders is
in any permanent way the superior of the men who receive them.

What has really happened during the war is that the army has changed
in the essential spirit of its organisation. It is no longer built on
the aristocratic principle like the army of Louis XIV. It has been
democratised and is approximating to the type of Napoleon's armies or
Cromwell's Ironsides. The shell of the old organisation is there
still. The life within the shell is different.

I do not know how the men of the old army regarded their generals and
officers in high command. If we may trust Kipling they had, sometimes
at least, a feeling of strong personal affection and admiration for
certain commanders.

"He's little, but he's wise,
And he does not advertise,
Do you, Bobs?"

Very likely the cavalry men still have this kind of feeling for their
generals. The men of the brigade I visited certainly ought to have
loved their general. He did a great deal for them. But the new army
does not seem to have any feeling either of respect or contempt for
its generals.

Nothing surprised me more when I became intimate with the men than
their attitude towards their commanding officers. I had read of the
devotion of armies to their leaders. We are told how Napoleon's
soldiers idolised him; how Wellington's men believed in him so that
they were prepared to follow him anywhere, confident in his genius.
Misled by newspaper correspondents, I supposed that I should find
this sort of thing common in France. I had often read of this general
and that as beloved or trusted by his men.

In fact no such spirit exists. Very often the men do not know the
name of the commander of the particular army, or even the brigade, to
which they belong; so little has the personality of the general
impressed itself on the men. Very often I used to meet evidences of
personal loyalty to a junior officer, a company commander, or a
subaltern. Occasionally men have the same feeling about a colonel.
They never seem to go beyond that. There was not a trace of
admiration for or confidence in any one in high command. It was not
that the men distrusted their generals or disliked them. Their
attitude was generally neutral. They knew nothing and cared very
l