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But with the end of 1915, the first stage, the elementary stage, of the new Armies came to an end.  When I stood, in March 1916, on the Scherpenberg hill, looking out over the Salient, new conditions reigned.  The Officer Cadet Corps had been formed; a lively and continuous intercourse between the realities of the front and the training at home had been set up; special schools in all subjects of military interest had been founded, often, as we have seen, by the zeal of individual officers, to be then gradually incorporated in the Army system.  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.  The most insolent of the German military newspapers are already bitterly confessing it.

* * * * *

My summary—­short and imperfect as it is—­of this first detailed account of its work which the War Office has allowed to be made public—­has carried me far afield.

The motor has been waiting long at the door of the hospitable headquarters which have entertained us!  Let me return to it, to the great spectacle of the present—­after this retrospect of the Past.

Again the crowded roads—­the young and vigorous troops—­the manifold sights illustrating branch after branch of the Army.  I recall a draft, tired with marching, clambering with joy into some empty lorries, and sitting there peacefully content, with legs dangling and the ever blessed cigarette for company, then an aeroplane station—­then a football field, with a violent game going on—­a Casualty Clearing Station, almost a large hospital—­another football match!—­a battery of eighteen-pounders on the march, and beyond an old French market town crowded with lorries and men.  In the midst of it D——­ suddenly draws my attention to a succession of great nozzles passing us, with their teams and limbers.  I have stood beside the forging and tempering of their brothers in the gun-shops of the north, have watched the testing and callipering of their shining throats.  They are 6-inch naval guns on their way to the line—­like everything else, part of the storm to come.