The spirit is manifest even in the midst of the battle. At the critical moment, when officers have fallen in the hurricane of iron, a man emerges from the ranks to lead on his comrades to the attack. From his knapsack, the legendary baton has slipped into his strong, tenacious hand. He has shown qualities of leadership in the supreme hour. General Sir Robert Baden-Powell recognised this genius of the race for instant adaptation when he visited the French Front and heard stories of improvisation; the native initiative of the soldier comes ever to his aid in the tightest corners, where German mechanism inevitably fails. Years ago, De Vigny, in a celebrated phrase, proclaimed the inherent power of a Frenchman to become a man of war. Time and again he has proved his martial qualities—a sheer instance of atavism. A sergeant leads a battalion into the jaws of death with such fire and courage that each man is electrified, loses his constitutional timidity and becomes a lion in the fight. Under this magic influence he is irresistible, like Cromwell’s Ironsides, whom, strange to say, he physically resembles. The low steel bonnet crowns the same sort of ruddy visage and brown beard which marked the East Anglian in the seventeenth century. There is something of the Englishman in him, something of the Berserker employing his "irresistible fury" in a national cause. His spirit of adventure has been translated into terms of patriotic achievement. And the officers themselves know how to acquire rapidly the science of the trench. Many in the regular army fell in the early days of the war; the professional leader trained and set apart for the career scarcely existed any more. Then up sprang the officer of reserve, until then engaged in civilian pursuits; nine-tenths were in that condition. But, taught in the hard school of war, they developed into the most accomplished chiefs.