The fact is that the German Army, with all its great traditions, has been petrifying for many years back.  They never learned the lesson of South Africa.  It was not for want of having it expounded to them, for their military attache—­“’im with the spatchcock on ’is ‘elmet,’” as I heard him described by a British orderly—­missed nothing of what occurred, as is evident from their official history of the war.  And yet they missed it, and with all those ideas of individual efficiency and elastic independent formation which are the essence of modern soldiering.  Their own more liberal thinkers were aware of it.  Here are the words which were put into the mouth of Guentz, the representative of the younger school, in Beverlein’s famous novel: 

“The organization of the German Army rested upon foundations which had been laid a hundred years ago.  Since the great war they had never seriously been put to the proof, and during the last three decades they had only been altered in the most trifling details.  In three long decades!  And in one of those decades the world at large had advanced as much as in the previous century.

“Instead of turning this highly developed intelligence to good account, they bound it hand and foot on the rack of an everlasting drill which could not have been more soullessly mechanical in the days of Frederick.  It held them together as an iron hoop holds together a cask, the dry staves of which would fall asunder at the first kick.”

Lord Roberts has said that if ten points represent the complete soldier, eight should stand for his efficiency as a shot.  The German maxim has rather been that eight should stand for his efficiency as a drilled marionette.  It has been reckoned that about two hundred books a year appear in Germany upon military affairs, against about twenty in Britain.  And yet, after all this expert debate, the essential point of all seems to have been missed—­that in the end everything depends upon the man behind the gun, upon his hitting his opponent and upon his taking cover so as to avoid being hit himself.

After all the efforts of the General Staff, the result when shown upon the field of battle has filled our men with a mixture of admiration and contempt—­contempt for the absurd tactics and admiration for the poor devils who struggle on in spite of them.  Listen to the voices of the men who are the real experts.  Says a Lincolnshire Sergeant:  “They were in solid square blocks, and we couldn’t help hitting them.”  Says Private Tait (Second Essex):  “Their rifle shooting is rotten.  I don’t believe they could hit a haystack at 100 yards.”  “They are rotten shots with their rifles,” says an Oldham private.  “They advance in close column, and you simply can’t help hitting them,” writes a Gordon Highlander.  “You would have thought it was a big crowd streaming out from a cup tie,” says Private Whitaker of the Guards.  “It was like a farmer’s machine cutting grass,” so it seemed to Private Hawkins of the Coldstreams.  “No damned good as riflemen,” says a Connemara boy.  “You couldn’t help hitting them.  As to their rifle fire, it was useless.”  “They shoot from the hip, and don’t seem to aim at anything in particular.”