his jaw, and of singular sweetness, courtesy, and
simplicity in his manner toward all who approached him, he had qualities
which might have raised him to the supreme height of personal influence
among his armies but for lack of the magic touch and the tragic
condition of his command.

He was intensely shy and reserved, shrinking from publicity and holding
himself aloof from the human side of war. He was constitutionally unable
to make a dramatic gesture before a multitude, or to say easy, stirring
things to officers and men whom he reviewed. His shyness and reserve
prevented him also from knowing as much as he ought to have known about
the opinions of officers and men, and getting direct information from
them. He held the supreme command of the British armies on the western
front when, in the battlefields of the Somme and Flanders, of Picardy
and Artois, there was not much chance for daring strategy, but only
for hammer-strokes by the flesh and blood of men against fortress
positions--the German trench systems, twenty-five miles deep in tunneled
earthworks and machine-gun dugouts--when the immensity of casualties
among British troops was out of all proportion to their gains of ground,
so that our men's spirits revolted against these massacres of their
youth and they were embittered against the generalship and staff-work
which directed these sacrificial actions.

This sense of bitterness became intense, to the point of fury, so that
a young staff officer, in his red tabs, with a jaunty manner, was like a
red rag to a bull among battalion officers and men, and they desired
his death exceedingly, exalting his little personality, dressed in a
well-cut tunic and fawn-colored riding-breeches and highly polished
top-boots, into the supreme folly of "the Staff" which made men attack
impossible positions, send down conflicting orders, issued a litter
of documents--called by an ugly name--containing impracticable
instructions, to the torment of the adjutants and to the scorn of the
troops. This hatred of the Staff was stoked high by the fires of
passion and despair. Some of it was unjust, and even the jaunty young
staff-officer--a G. S. O. 3, with red tabs and polished boots--was often
not quite such a fool as he looked, but a fellow who had proved his
pluck in the early days of the war and was now doing his duty--about
equal to the work of a boy clerk--with real industry and an exaggerated
sense of its importance.

Personall