The retreat of General Watts across the ravaged country, his attempt to hold the long front of the Somme, his successive short retreats, his continual stands, and his eventual success, will always remain one of the most remarkable incidents in the war. This officer, who at the beginning of hostilities was a "dug-out," hardly rescued from a premature ending of his military career, showed in the highest degree those qualities of never despairing, and of rapidly adapting means to an end, which mark the competent soldier. He began with two units under his control, and he ended with fifteen, but no general ever had to handle more weary troops, or had more need of a clear head and a high heart. The strain upon him had been extraordinary--though indeed that is true of every corps and divisional commander in the line. As to the special features of this operation, it may be said to be remarkable for the improvisations of troops, for the continual use of entrenching battalions as combatants, for the work of the dismounted cavalry, for the self-sacrifice and energy of the motor batteries, and very specially for the degree of mobility attained by the heavy artillery and the rapidity with which it came into action in successive positions. Military critics will draw many deeper lessons from these operations, but these at least are sufficiently obvious to catch the eye of the least experienced student. The total losses of the Nineteenth Corps during this fourteen days of battle came to from 35,000 to 40,000, killed, wounded, and missing. The losses in guns were 41 heavy pieces and 73 field-guns, twelve {155} of which were anti-tank guns in the forward line. The pressure sustained by some of the divisions would be incredible if the facts were not fully authenticated. Thus the Eighth English Division was attacked from first to last by eighteen different German divisions, including three of the Guards. Prisoners were taken from each so that their identity could not be disputed. Yet this same Eighth Division was engaged within three weeks in the victorious advance at Villers-Bretonneux. The German oracle Clausewitz has said that a retreating army should go back not like a hunted deer but like a wounded lion. His commentators would hardly find a better example than the British armies in the second battle of the Somme. {156} CHAPTER VI THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE SOMME The Retreat of the Eighteenth Corps, March 21-29. Retreat of the Sixty-first Division--The Gloucesters at Beauvais--Fall of Ham--Retreat of the Thirtieth and Thirty-sixth Divisions--Great privations of the men--Fine feat at Le Quesnoy--Summary of the experience of Maxse's Corps. [Sidenote: Eighteenth Corps. March 22.]