But not until the second year of the war was Joffre given that supreme command and that independence of action so essential to success. Only in 1916 was it recognised that there must be a co-ordination of effort in the different fields; that the Allies could not act separately without relation to each other and hope thereby to advance the common cause; they must carry out a certain preconceived plan and carry it out with a common energy, subserving all questions of persons and national prestige to the unique end of winning the war. The English Army, after the retirement of Marshal French, was placed directly under the orders of Joffre; thereafter it had its exact place in the common movement and represented a certain intimate part of the general machine. England thereby showed her loyalty and her conception of the necessities of the hour in bending to the principle of French dominance. It was inevitable, for the French were the chief combatants on the Western Front; their army was necessarily the more numerous and they were defending their own hearths and homes; the war to them was in reality a war of liberation. After, then, the general objects of the Allies were defined, it was seen that there must be unity of command. I remember how urgently a celebrated French General spoke to me on this subject after the war had lasted a year. "For the sake of our common action," he said, "do insist in England on the necessity of oneness in the command. Otherwise, the problem is impossible." And when that principle was at last acknowledged, and England merged her military fortunes more deeply with those of France, sacrificing also some of her independence in the field, the Allies were approaching the German homogeneity, where the Kaiser conducted the mixed orchestra and called the tune. Whatever the music was like, the general effect was certainly better than if there had been two or more chiefs and as many tunes.