The April of 1916 was a critical month in the Western campaign. On the 9th the first and deadliest stage of the German assault on Verdun had closed with the failure of the attackers. Pétain’s thin lines had held their ground; the little city was still inviolate; and, though France had lost terribly, she had wrecked the plans of her enemy, inflicted upon him irreparable loss, and by her heroism won that quiet confidence which is the surest guarantee of victory. When the Imperial Crown Prince opened the battle, one part of his purpose had been to induce a British counter-offensive. That counter-offensive did not come, for General Joffre did not desire it. He preferred to wait until Germany had spent her strength, and to use the armies of France and Britain in a great movement against a weakened foe. Our task, therefore, during the first months of 1916 had been to wait. The duty had been costly, for on our front the average daily toll of loss in trench fighting was not far from 1,000. It was a difficult time, for there was no great objective to quicken the spirit, and those indeterminate months imposed a heavy strain upon the _moral_ of our troops. Yet the apparent stagnation was not without its advantage, for it gave the new British Commander-in-Chief time to complete his field army and perfect its education. When Sir Douglas Haig took over the supreme command he set himself to the work which Sir John Moore had undertaken more than a century before. He had to train his men for a new kind of warfare, and the whole British front became one vast seminary. To quote from his dispatch at this date: “During the periods of relief all formations, and especially the newly-created ones, are instructed and practised in all classes of the present and other phases of warfare. A large number of schools also exist for the instruction of individuals, especially in the use and theory of the less familiar weapons, such as bombs and grenades. There are schools for young staff officers, and regimental officers, for candidates for commissions, etc. In short, every effort is made to take advantage of the closer contact with actual warfare, and to put the finishing touches, often after actual experience in the trenches, to the training received at home.”