You have doubled the personnel of your
Navy, and increased your Regular Army by nearly 180,000 men. You are
constructing 3,500 aeroplanes, and training 6,000 airmen. And you are
now talking of 100,000 aeroplanes! Not bad, for seven weeks!
* * * * *
For the Allies also those seven weeks have been full of achievement. On
Easter Monday, April 9th, the Battle of Arras began, with the brilliant
capture by the Canadians of that very Vimy Ridge I had seen on March
2nd, from the plateau of Notre Dame de Lorette, lying in the middle
distance under the spring sunshine. That exposed hill-side--those
batteries through which I had walked--those crowded roads, and
travelling guns, those marching troops and piled ammunition dumps!--how
the recollection of them gave accent and fire to the picture of the
battle as the telegrams from the front built it up day by day before
one's eyes! Week by week, afterwards, with a mastery in artillery and in
aviation that nothing could withstand, the British Army pushed on
through April.
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