There is, however, all the difference in the world between the transitive and intransitive senses of a verb, and if we take the verb to "terrorise" as an apposite example, the transition from the former sense to the latter, _i.e._ from terrorising to being terrorised, is apt to be very noticeable, indeed unpleasant. Granted that British and Boche ideas on the particular subject in no way harmonise, the British method ultimately of diffusing an unlimited supply of high explosive over the Boche lines nevertheless had the desired effect of "putting the fear of God" into the right individuals, at the right time, and in the right place. One employs the prefix "ultimately" of necessity, for obviously the diffusion of metal prior to the latter phases of the war was, except upon certain occasions which were few and far between, anything but unlimited; it was, in fact, at one particular period of the war of so limited a nature as to infuse into the mind of the late Lord Kitchener a fear of stalemate on the Western Front, sufficient to impel his acquiescence in that diversion, so ardently advocated by "amateur strategists" but destined to prove nothing but a prodigious and costly failure, to wit the Dardanelles expedition. Thanks, however, to the staying powers of the workers, to the inflexible will to win by which they were animated throughout, the crushing superiority, early attributable to the enemy, gradually became less and less apparent; in fact, after hanging for a time evenly in the balance, the scales indeed tipped the other way, eventually dipping to such an extent in Entente favour as to become a source, at first of no little astonishment, then of concern, to the German "Imperial Staff of Supermen." General Ludendorff in his memoirs ["My War Memories," 1914-1918, Vols. I. & II., Hutchinson & Co. 39s.] makes no attempt to conceal his surprise, if not indeed his dismay, at the awkward trend of events. "Whereas we had hitherto been able to conduct our great war of defence" (_sic_), so he writes (cp. page 240, Vol. I.), "by that best means of waging war--the offensive--we were now (by the autumn of 1916) reduced to a policy of pure defence.... The equipment of the Entente armies with war material had been carried out on a scale hitherto unknown"; the boot was plainly on the other leg, for (cp. page 242, Vol. I.) "the Battle of the Somme showed us every day how great was the advantage of the enemy in this respect." Evidently the one and only Ludendorff no longer had any doubt in his own mind as to the "writing on the wall," its lettering was clear, its meaning ominous and unmistakable; from the German point of view things were going from bad to worse; "At the beginning of June (1917)," he continues (cp. pages 428, 429, Vol. II.), "the straightening of this (the Wytschaete) salient really ushered in the great Flanders battle.... The heights of Wytschaete and Messines had been the site of active mine warfare," and