And
always the same difficulty of guns, rifles, huts, and the rest.
But, like its own tanks, the War Office went steadily on, negotiating
one obstacle after another. Special courses for special subjects began
to be set up. Soon artillery officers had no longer to join their
batteries _at once_ on appointment; R.E. officers could be given a seven
weeks' training at Chatham; little enough, "for a man supposed to know
the use and repairs of telephones and telegraphs, or the way to build or
destroy a bridge, or how to meet the countless other needs with which a
sapper is called upon to deal!" Increasing attention was paid to staff
training and staff courses. And insufficient as it all was, for months,
the general results of this haphazard training, when the men actually
got into the field--all short-comings and disappointments admitted--were
nothing short of wonderful. Had the Germans forgotten that we are and
always have been a fighting people? That fact, at any rate, was brought
home to them by the unbroken spirit of the troops who held the line in
France and Flanders in 1915 against all attempts to break through; and
at Neuve Chapelle, or Loos, or a hundred other minor engagements, only
wanted numbers and ammunition--above all ammunition!--to win them the
full victory they had rightly earned.
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