Four hours after the fighting began, Sir Douglas Haig telegraphed:  “Attack launched north of River Somme this morning at 7.30 A.M.  In conjunction with French, British troops have broken into German forward system of defences, on front of sixteen miles.  Fighting is continuing.  French attack on our immediate right proceeding equally satisfactorily.”  Twelve hours later, on the same day, when the summer night had fallen on the terrible battle-field, the British Commander-in-Chief added:—­“Heavy fighting has continued all day between the rivers Somme and Ancre.  On the right of our attack we have captured the German labyrinth of trenches on a front of seven miles to a depth of 1,000 yards, and have stormed and occupied the strongly fortified villages of Montauban and Mametz.  In the centre on a front of four miles we have gained many strong points.  North of the Ancre Valley the battle has been equally violent, and in this area we have been unable to retain portions of the ground gained in our first attacks, while other portions remain in our possession....  Up to date, 2,000 German prisoners have passed through our collecting stations.  The large number of the enemy dead on the battle-field indicate that the German losses have been very severe.”

So much for the first day’s news.  On the following day Fricourt was captured; and the prisoners went up to 3,500, together with a quantity of war material.  Meanwhile the French on the right had done brilliantly, capturing five villages, and 6,000 prisoners.  The attack was well begun.

And the New Armies?—­“Kitchener’s Men”?  “Whatever we have imagined of our New Armies,” says an eye-witness of the first day’s battle, “they are better than we can have ever dared to hope.  Nothing has in any case stopped them, except being killed.”  And a neutral who saw the attack on Mametz told the same eye-witness that he had seen most of the fighting in the world in recent years, and that he “did not believe a more gallant feat was ever performed in war.”  The story of the British advance was written “in the dead upon the ground, and in the positions as they stand.”  “Nothing which the Japanese did in the Russian War” was more entirely heroic.

But let me carry on the story.

On Tuesday, July 11th, Sir Douglas Haig reported:  “After ten days and nights of continuous fighting our troops have completed the methodical capture of the whole of the enemy’s first system of defence on a front of 14,000 yards.

“This system of defence consisted of numerous and continuous lines of foretrenches, support trenches and reserve trenches, extending to various depths of from 2,000 to 4,000 yards, and included five strongly fortified villages, numerous heavily wired and intrenched woods, and a large number of immensely strong redoubts.”

The villages captured were Fricourt, Mametz, Montauban, La Boiselle, and Contalmaison—­the latter captured on July 10th, after particularly fierce fighting.  Every observer dwells on “the immense strength of the German defences.”  “All the little villages and woods, each eminence and hollow, have been converted into a fortress as formidable as the character of the ground makes possible.”  The German has omitted nothing “that could protect him against such a day as this.”