Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918

calculations - Views on the maritime blockade - The projects for operations against the Belgian coast district in the winter of 1914-15 - Nature of my staff - The "dug-outs" - The services of one of t

ers, and I am told off to go into the matter with him - The Baltic project - The way it was approached - Meetings with Lord Fisher - The "beetles" - Visits from the First Sea Lord - T

hich kept arising in the Balkans. Then, again, quite a number of "side-shows" had been embarked on at various dates since the outbreak of the conflict, of which some had been carried through to a successful conclusion to the advantage of the cause, while the course of others had been of a decidedly chequered character. The munitions question, furthermore, which had for a time caused most serious difficulty but which had been dis

gton somewhere amidst the declivities of the sierras without one qualm, and immersed himself in computations warranted to make the plain man's hair stand on end. The enthusiasts who voluntarily undertook this onerous task arrived at results of the most encouraging kind, for one learnt that the Hun as a warrior would within quite a short space of time be a phantom of the past, that adult males within the Kaiser's dominions would speedily comprise only the very aged, the mentally afflicted o

ate factors. You might put down indispensables in civil life at half a million or at four millions just as you liked; but it made the difference of three and a half millions in your pool to start with, according to which estimate you preferred. After that you had to cut out the unfit-another problematical figure. Finally came the question of casualties based on suspicious enemy statistics, and the perplexities involved in the number of wounde

ove methods in those days, and the Sister Service seemed to be in discontented mood. But there was a good deal to be said on the other side. Lack of familiarity with international law, with precedents, and with the tenour and result of the discussions which had at various times taken place with foreign countries over the manners and customs of naval blockade, made any conclusions which I might arrive at over so complex a problem of little profit. But it always did seem to

afoot from Sir J. Wolfe Murray and Fitzgerald, as also from G.H.Q. in France, and examined the problem which was involved with the aid of large-scale maps and charts and such other information as was available. The experts of St. Omer did not appear to accept the scheme with absolutely whole-hearted concurrence. By some of them-it may have been a mistaken impression on my part-the visits of the First Lord of the Admiralty to their Chief hardly seemed to be welcomed with the enthusiasm that might have been expected. Whisperings from across the Channel perhaps made one more critical

ld not have excited me in the very least. In his book, the Field-Marshal ascribes the final decision of our Government to refuse sanction to a plan of operations which they had approved of at the first blush, partly to French objections and partly to the sudden fanc

rning this particular class of officer as introduced into the War Office, of whom I formed one myself. Instigated thereunto by that gushing fountain of unimpeachable information, the Press, the public were during the early part of the war disposed to attribute all high crimes and misdemeanours, of which the central administration of the nation's military forces was pronounced to have been guilty, to the "dug-out." That the personnel of the War Office was always set out in detail at the beginning of the Monthly Army List, the omniscient Fourth Estate was naturally aware; but the management of a newspaper could hardly be expected to purchase a copy (it was not made confidential for a year). Nor cou

burden even amid the stress and turmoil of the battlefield. One, after serving with conspicuous distinction in several theatres of war, finished up as Chief of the General Staff and right-hand man to Sir Douglas Haig in 1918. Those members of the b

cal subaltern, but was furnished in addition with certain virtues that the ty

his brow

sat and sov

enerals and colonels and people of that kind doing duty at the War Office did not then have soldier servants-but "Z" did. It is, however, bare justice to him to acknowledge that, after I had served his purpose and when he came to send me back to England from Boulogne before he resumed his inspection of troops and trenches, he was grandmotherly in his solicitude that I should meet with no

to call for comment. The Admiralty and the Foreign Office naturally engaged his attention more than others, but he was a familiar figure in them all. His activities were so varied in

I have forgotten the name, had been landed somewhere or other in Scandinavia. "But do you know what it is, sir? It's the most appalling poison! It's the concoction that the South Sea Islanders smear their bows and arrows with-cyanide and prussic acid are soothing-syrup compared to it. Of

all means. Th

rd of an antidote, but of course he knows nothing whatever about it really, and is only talking through his hat, I tell you what, sir, we ought to lend them a hand in this business. I know Professor Stingo; he's miles and away the bi

ou propose, and let

cally and broadcast. After it's been invented or made or procured, or whatever's got to be done, some comedian in the Quartermaster-General's show will insist on the result being packed up in receptacles warranted rot-proof against everything that the mind of man can conceive till the Day of Judgment-you know the absurd way those sort of people go on, sir-and all that will take ages, ?ons." He really th

ting, seeing that

ce when he feels himself obliged reluctantly to express disapproval of superior military authority, "oughtn't we to

a guarded suggestion to them on the subject

consuls and bottle-washers in Scandinavia to keep their wits about them. I offered to draft the wires for them; but they seemed to think that they could do it themselves, and I daresay they'll manage all right now that I've told them exactly what they are to say. I really do

a hurry. "I've been hearing about the c

aterpi

-full of platoons and bombs and machine guns, and all the rest of it. I will say this for Winston and those mariners across Whitehall, when they get an idea they carry it out and do not bother whether the thing'll be any use or can be made at all-care no more for the Treasury than if it was so m

t one moment. How

ns use when they want to pacify a busybody like Captain Cook who comes butting in where he isn't wanted. As a matter of fact there's uncommon little of it-they don't get a hundredweight in a generation. Then there's the red for

d all this to the

old him first thi

your having started him off af

and I didn't feel justified in wasting his time. S

ur prof

r, may I go over to the Admiralty?" And off he went, with instructions to find out all that he could about these contrivances that he had heard about, and to do what he could to promote their production. A treasure: unconventional, resourceful, exceptionally well informed, determined; the man to get a thing done that one wanted done-even if he did at times get a thing done that

e beginning of January 1915, and that his projects had then been "turned down" by a technical branch to which he had, unfortunately, referred them. It does not seem possible that the technical branch can have brought the question to the notice of the General Staff, or I must have heard of it. The value of some contrivance such as he was confident could be constructed was from the tactical point of view incontestable, and had been incontestable ever since trench warfare became the order of the day on the

good many of the criticisms of which it has been the victim. The blunder was not perhaps so much the fault of individuals as of the system. The technical branches had not been put in their place before the war, they did not understand their position and did not realize that on broad questions of policy they were subject to the General Staff. It is worthy of note, incidentally, that Swinton never seems to have got much satisfaction with G.H.Q. in France until he brou

Lord was anxious to discuss details with somebody from our side of Whitehall, and the Chief wished me to take the thing up, the whole business being of a most secret character. Lord Fisher, I gathered, contemplated descents upon German shores; Lord K. did not appear to take these very seriously, but he did foresee that a

hemes of this particular kind had not been found to offer much attraction when their details came to be considered. As for the Baltic coast, one was given nothing whatever to go upon-was groping in the dark. You wondered how it was proposed to obtain command of these protected waters, bearing in mind the nature of the approaches through defiles which happened to be in the main in neutral hands, but you realized that this was a nava

ops rapidly. Once landed, the army still has to go ahead and do its business, whatever this is, as a military undertaking, and it stands in need of some definite and practicable objective. The numbers of which it is to consist and its detailed organization have to be worked out in advance, with a clear idea of what service it is intended to perform and of the strength of the enemy forces which it is likely to encounter while carrying out its purpose. It has to be fed and has to be supplied with war material after it has been deposited on terra firma. Is it to take its transport with it, or will it pick this up on arrival? Even the constitution

der-in-Chief on the Mediterranean station, enjoyed a confidential discussion with him in Malta concerning certain strategical questions in that part of the world, and had been amazed at the alertness of his brain, his originality of thought, his intoxicating enthusiasm, and his relentless driving power. Now, in 1915, he seemed to be even younger than he had seemed then. He covered the ground at such a pace that I was speedily toiling breathless and dishevelled far in rear. It is all very well to carry off Memories into a quiet corner and to try to assimilate limited portions of that work at a time,

ent towards the end of April, when they were found quite satisfactory. Although they were never turned to account for the purpose which Lord Fisher had had in mind when the decision was taken to build them, a number of these mobile barges proved extremely useful to our troops in the later stages of the Dardanelles campaign, notably on the occasion of the landing at Suvla and while the final evacuations

sk character. He gave me no warning, scorning the normal procedure of induction by a messenger. He would appear of a sudden peeping in at the door to see if I was at home, would then thrust the door to and lock it on the inside with a deft turn of the wrist, would screw up the lean-to ventilator above the door in frantic haste, and would have darted over and be sitting down beside me, talking earnestly and ventre-à-terre of matters of grave moment, almost

uring those early months of the war, and that was that the fewer the individuals are-no matter who they may be-who are made acquainted with secrets the better. But this is not of such vi

emselves-that the regiment was booked for a stunt at Cuxhaven, it did a great deal of harm. Because, although Gladys did not know where Cuxhaven was, she looked it up in the atlas when she got home, and she thereupon realized, with a wriggle of gratification, that she was "in the know," and under the circumstances she could hardly have been expected not to tell Agatha-under pledge, needless to say, of inviolable secrecy. Nor would you have been well advised to have bet that Agatha would not-in confidence-mention the matter to Genevieve, becau

me. These youngsters cannot have absorbed this reticence simply automatically and as one of the traditions of that great Silent Service, to which, more than to any other factor, we and our Allies owe our common triumph in the Great War. It must have been dinned into them at Osborne and Dartmouth, and it must have been impressed upon them-forcibly as is the way amongst those whose dwelling is in the Great Waters-day by day by their superiors afloat.

a big room upstairs; and he was always walking up and down, like Aristotle only that he had his hands in his pockets. His demeanour would be a blend of boredom with the benign. "Whatch-think of this?" he would demand, snatching up some paper from his desk, cramming it into my hand, and continuing his promenade. Such observations on my part in response to the invitation as seemed to meet the case would be ac

or condensing what was needed in a case like this into a convincing form of words, for epitomizing in a single sentence the conclusions arrived at (supposing conclusions by any chance to