nerous, has won for itself a real affection in
France wherever it has had a chance to display itself....

But when it comes to British methods then the polite Frenchman's
difficulties begin. Translating hints into statements and guessing at
reservations, I would say that the French fall very short of admiration
of the way in which our higher officers set about their work, they
are disagreeably impressed by a general want of sedulousness and close
method in our leading. They think we economise brains and waste
blood. They are shocked at the way in which obviously incompetent or
inefficient men of the old army class are retained in their positions
even after serious failures, and they were profoundly moved by the bad
staff work and needlessly heavy losses of our opening attacks in July.
They were ready to condone the blunderings and flounderings of the 1915
offensive as the necessary penalties of an "amateur" army, they had had
to learn their own lesson in Champagne, but they were surprised to
find how much the British had still to learn in July, 1916. The British
officers excuse themselves because, they plead, they are still
amateurs. "That is no reason," says the Frenchman, "why they should be
amateurish."

No Frenchman said as much as this to me, but their meaning was as plain
as daylight. I tackled one of my guides on this matter; I said that it
was the plain duty of the French military people to criticise British
military methods sharply if they thought they were wrong. "It is not
easy," he said. "Many British officers do not think they have anything
to learn. And English people do not like being told things. What could
we do? We could hardly send a French officer or so to your headquarters
in a tutorial capacity. You have to do things in your own way." When
I tried to draw General Castelnau into this dangerous question by
suggesting that we might borrow a French general or so, he would say
only, "There is only one way to learn war, and that is to make war."
When it was too late, in the lift, I thought of the answer to that.
There is only one way to make war, and that is by the sacrifice of
incapables and the rapid promotion of able men. If old and tried types
fail now, new types must be sought. But to do that we want a standard of
efficiency. We want a conception of intellectual quality in performance
that is still lacking....

M. Joseph Reinach, in whose company I visited the French part of the
Somme front, was