Men
insufficiently trained in the early months had been given the
opportunity--which they eagerly took--of beginning at the beginning
again, correcting mistakes and incorporating all the latest knowledge.
Even a lieutenant-colonel, before commanding a battalion, could go to
school once more; and even for officers and men "in rest," there were,
and are, endless opportunities of seeing and learning, which few wish
to forgo.
And that brings me to what is now shaping itself--the final result. The
year just passed, indeed--from March to March--has practically rounded
our task--though the "learning" of the Army is never over!--and has seen
the transformation--whether temporary or permanent, who yet can
tell?--of the England of 1914, with its zealous mobs of untrained and
"tatterdemalion" recruits, into a great military power,[This letter was
finished just as the news of the Easter Monday Battle of Arras was
coming in.] disposing of armies in no whit inferior to those of Germany,
and bringing to bear upon the science of war--now that Germany has
forced us to it--the best intelligence, and the best _character_, of the
nation.
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