or
a flanking operation. It must go against frontal positions,
incorporating in its strategy every defensive lesson learned and the
defensive tactics and weapons developed in eighteen months of trench
warfare. If, as was generally supposed, the precision of modern arms,
with rifles and machine guns sending their bullets three thousand yards
and curtains of fire delivered from hidden guns anywhere from two to
fifteen miles away, was all in favor of the defensive, then how, when in
the days of muzzle-loading rifles and smooth-bore guns frontal attacks
had failed, could one possibly succeed in 1916?

Again and again in our mess and in all of the messes at the front, and
wherever men gathered the world over, the question, Can the line be
broken? has been discussed. As discussed it is an academic question. The
practical answer depends upon the strength of the attacking force
compared to that of the defending force. If the Germans could keep only
five hundred thousand men on the Western front they would have to
withdraw from a part of the line, concentrate on chosen positions and
depend on tactics to defend their exposed flanks in pitched battle.
Three million men, with ten thousand guns, could not break the line
against an equally skilful army of three millions with ten thousand
guns; but five millions with fifteen thousand guns might break the line
held by an equally skilful army of a million with five thousand guns.
Thus, you are brought to a question of numbers, of skill and of
material. If the object be attrition, then the offensive, if it can
carry on its attacks with less loss of men than the defensive, must win.
With the losses about equal, the offensive must also eventually win if
it has sufficient reserves.

There could be no restraining the public, with the wish father to the
thought, from believing that the attack of July 1st on the Somme was an
effort at immediate decision, though the responsible staff officer was
very careful to state that there was no expectation of breaking the line
and that the object was to gain a victory in _morale_, train the army in
actual conditions for future offensives, and, when the ledger was
balanced, to prove that, with superior gunfire, the offensive could be
conducted with less loss than the defensive under modern conditions.
This, I think, may best be stated now. The results we shall consider
later.

One thing was certain, with the accruing strength of the British and the
Fr