PLEASED AT CAPTURE

Even then, as I wrote at the time, it needed supreme persuasion by their officers to convince them that this possibility was within their strength. There were many who refused to believe that they could break us and who turned deaf ears to the campaign of propaganda in which they were doped by the military and political leaders of Germany, themselves intoxicated by the prospects of their gamble for the highest stakes. I wrote all that last February on good evidence, which may have seemed a little false when, with their overwhelming numbers of 114 divisions to 48 against the British front they actually did break through our lines and threaten us with disaster. Then for a time German officers said to their men, “What did we tell you?” and they had no answer, because of success beyond their first belief. But now, when they are back again in their old places after frightful losses, and when their strength has been so shattered that they will never be strong like that again they have fallen from what optimism was theirs to the depths of black forebodings. Victory will never be theirs in the field. They know that as a fact. They knew it so well that when in recent days we captured large numbers of the Second Guards Division, of which the remnants have just been withdrawn from the line, they desired capture and had no more fighting spirit. Yet they used to be proud troops, these men of the Franz and Alexandra and Augusta Regiments. The Kaiser had no prouder men in his army, nor any more disciplined by training and tradition. The men of the Franz Regiment were brought in first, and were miserable. But later, when, after one or two more days of hard fighting, prisoners of the Alexandra and Augusta Regiments marched down in droves through our lines, they were not only pleased at their capture, but urged our men to go on attacking and to take as many Germans as possible so that the war would end quickly.