In my previous chapters I have told the Front what I could of the rising tide of munitions, of what they may expect from the gigantic effort that is at last being made in war work. I have said, judging from what I have seen, nothing can stand against our armies and the torrent of shells and munitions they will assuredly have from and after the spring--if the war-workers play out their part. That is the one and only “if,” but in the war works I have seen and heard some indication that the “if” still remains, and now I want to say a word, as one who went through that first winter and a year at the Front, to the workers at Home, to ask the men in the trenches to write home to any and every man or woman they may know in the war works and urge them to every possible effort as I here urge them. There is every evidence, and evidence that is under the hands and before the eyes of the war-workers, of the enormous amount of munitions now forthcoming. What I am anxious to impress upon them is the enormous amount the Front wants and needs if it is to get a fair show. I have no wish to belittle--even if it were possible--the war-workers’ efforts, but I do want them to understand that they cannot afford to slacken that effort for a single day if an adequate, a really adequate supply is to be maintained at the Front. A new National Factory and its workers may be justly proud of their output of 5,000 shells a week, and think they are doing enormously well if by the spring they are trebling that output. But let them remember this--one single insignificant battery of Field Artillery can fire away that present week’s output in one day, a Brigade of Field Artillery can use that week’s trebled output of 15,000 shells in the day again. The workers may fairly argue that their factory is only one, that dozens, scores of other factories are each turning out as many or more shells. But so at the Front are there many guns and many batteries. Has the average worker any idea how many Field Batteries there are in the Army to-day? I may not say, but it is common knowledge that the batteries run into very large numbers, and are going to take many shells to feed, are going to keep the war-workers sweating again to keep the guns going. In the battle-lines of the Western Front--I should say battle-line, because, even if a thrust is being made on any one part of a few miles, it means that an attack must be made strongly along the whole line to prevent the enemy knowing where the main attempt is being made--there are a prodigious number of guns employed. At a distance behind the infantry trenches the ground is simply packed with guns and batteries. Hitherto we have hardly had the guns going full pelt for more than a day or two at a time. We have no wish to anticipate any such spasmodic and unsustained efforts again. On the Western Front, or the Balkan Front, or any other front, when the real Big Push comes we must look to see a battle fought fiercely and desperately week after