Best of all, a message from the Army Commander, Sir Henry Horne, with whom we had made friends in 1917, just before the capture of the Vimy Ridge, in which the First Army played so brilliant a part. We hastily change our travel gear, a car comes for us, and soon we find ourselves at the General's table in the midst of an easy flow of pleasant talk. What is it that makes the special charm of the distinguished soldier, as compared with other distinguished men? Simplicity, I suppose, and truth. The realities of war leave small room for any kind of pose. A high degree, also, of personal stoicism easily felt but not obtruded; and towards weak and small things--women and children--a natural softness and tenderness of feeling, as though a man who has upon him such stern responsibilities of life and death must needs grasp at their opposites, when and how he can; keen intelligence, _bien entendu_, modesty, courtesy; a habit of brevity; a boy's love of fun: with some such list of characteristics I find myself trying to answer my own question. They are at least conspicuous in many leaders of the Allied Armies. "Why don't you _boom_ your Generals?" said an American diplomatist to me some eight months ago. "Your public at home knows far too little about them individually. But the personal popularity of the military leader in such a national war as this is a military asset." I believe I entirely agree with the speaker! But it is not the British military way, and the unwritten laws of the Service stand firm. So let me only remind you that General Horne led the artillery at Mons; that he has commanded the First Army since September, 1916; that, in conjunction with Sir Julian Byng, he carried the Vimy Ridge in 1917, and held the left at Arras in 1918; and, finally, that he was the northernmost of the three Army Commanders who stormed the Hindenburg line last September. It was in his study and listening to the explanations he gave me, so clearly and kindly, of the Staff maps that lay before us, that I first realised with anything like sufficient sharpness the meaning of those words we have all repeated so often without understanding them--"_the capture of the Hindenburg line_." What was the Hindenburg line? CHAPTER III TANKS AND THE HINDENBURG LINE