Evening journal., 1916-11-17
British Achievement

The latest progress of the British at
the Somme is a striking evidence OF
the real achievement Of the new Brit
ish army in finding itself in recent
months. The least careful scrunity Of
the official reports discloses the fact
that the British staff has learned the
lesson OF modern war. that the Brit
ish art llery has gained the skill nee
essary to coordinate its fire with in
fantry advance; and the rapidity of
the advance Of the infantry is proven
by the number Of prisoners that have
fallen 10 the successful troops.
French and German reports in re-
cent weeks have borne testimony to
the same fact, that the Br t'sh army,
. the new army, the force which has
been created since the war began, is
beginning to give clear proof Of hay
ing learned those hard lessons that
all armies have to learn, when they
are created out Of the courage, the
devotion and patriotism of untra ned
men and commanded by officers who
have still to learn the + own lessons.
We have been accustomed to speak
in Amer ca of the marvellous military
genius displayed by the French, Of the
,cientihc attainment Of the German
staff We have necessarily viewed
h.. oh IL 10
tive thing. We have not pa much
attention to the physical cond tions
of the nations which sent their armies
into the field, but Of the achievement
OF the armies themselves.
The result of ths Judgment has
been 70 obscure the actual achive-
ment of the British The French and
the Germans had universal service,
general staiis-al the machinery of
modern war created by years Of pa
tient labor admin stored by officers
who had made the organ Eat on life
work, and given to it the devotion and
the ability that i'm Britain, as n the
United States, never finds its way into
the army save in hours Of national
crisis.
When the General War began the
Brit sh had q relatively small cXpe-
dictionary army, trained accord ng to
British standards. uneXcelled i'm ma
ter'al. but commanded by officers
whose training had been n colonial
wars and who had never had the ex-
per'ence of their brethren on the Con-
tnent i'm the great manOeuvres
which are the real school of high
command.
This little army was destroyed in
the first campaign from Mons to
Ypres It's losses in men and n Off
GERS were tremendous, and the latter
loss was irrepaTable, because behind
them was no reservoir OF other Off
GERS. When the struggles in Elan
ders were over the British military
establ 'shment, as it has existed in
August, was almost destroyed; what
rema ned was not even the skeleton
on which to build a new army, this
time of millions, not thousands
The result was the result that is
perfectly familiar to Americans who
know their Civil War story We
who had Bull Run, Charlottesville
and all that lay between, we who had
! failures like Fredericksburg and mar
( row escapes Ike Shiloh. can best I'M
derstand what underlay the British
/ failures at Neuve Chapolle, at Loos
/ i'm Gail poll These are costs of I'M
preparedness and the inevitable con-
comitants OF ineXperience.
Like the North and the South in
| the Civil War, the British people did
not at once learn the lesson; they
had to come, ult mately. to conscrip-
ton. as we came to the draft: they
had to suffer from self-decept'On
from illusions, from hopes as false as
the Northern dreams Of ION to Rich
mond' Many that they trusted, much
that they hoped, failed them, inevita-
bly, and completely.
Yet, as 1.-THE World" correspondent
pointed out the other day. IN the face
OF all this the British marched on "a
the thing that the Germans believed
was impossible. When thew learned
that CONSUMPTION was inevitable they
accepted It as a detail in the win
ming Of victory, and in do ng this. as
Mr. Swope saws they struck the Ger
man hope a blow almost more serious
than tho Marine.
The British failure that the world
has seen has covered a British sue
cess which the world has Just begun
to see And nothing is more patent
than the fact that the Brit sh. who
knew their own spirit and their own
determination. could as little under
stand the verdict OF the world on
their day by day performance as the
North could understand or bear the
comments of the Brit sh war cor
! respondents on the army that failed
at Bull Run. the comments Of Bull
Run" Russell, for example
The thing the British believed was
/ that their failures were Incidents
! they did not even see them as fail
! ures. because as is inevitable. they
saw not the failure, but the success
] the heorism, the devotion. the sacri-
/ fee OF the men who d'ed in all the
/ struggles. The thing that outside
critics saw was necessar ly the mill
tary operation.
1t was not until the Battle Of the
Somme began that there was a Brit
! ish army I'm the modern sense that
there was a British army 'n the sense
that there had been a French or q
! German armv from the start But
! this army Of son orc had been Great
ed in almost everv detail not ont OF
the accumulated resources and exner.
'ences Of manv years. OF centuries
but out Of nothing hut British cit'-
zens. who had never, even in the
&c