Once the signal of attack is given, the officers and non-commissioned officers will scarcely have any other means of ensuring obedience to their orders than by setting an example to their men. We take this occasion to render a profound homage to inferior ranking officers of the French armies. They indeed are and shall remain the heroes of this war. They have fallen on the field of honour since August, 1914, not by thousands but by tens of thousands. Never, under the most critical circumstances, has their morale weakened for a single moment. At all times, men equally as brave as their predecessors have been found to fill the places of those who had so heroically (I was going to say so cheerfully) gone down to death. By the sacrifice of their lives to their country, they have not only set an example to the officers of their Allies, but have also given the latter time to form and train themselves, and I can truthfully say, to equal them. The bravery displayed by the infantry officers of the English, Italian, and Russian armies is on a par with that of the French officers, and within a short time, the American officers, I am sure, will show themselves worthy of the same verdict. [Illustration: South of La Bovelle Farm January 29, 1917--12.30 P.M.] Our officers have always and from the very first day of the war invariably marched ahead of their men, leading them straight to the enemy. They have advanced through the most intense curtain-fire; they have exposed themselves to the fire of innumerable machine-guns; they have been the targets of rifles and grenades. Thousands have been killed; not one has hesitated, not one has turned back. The Allied officers have exhibited the same daring, the same bravery. But what about the German officers? Is it possible not to contrast their attitude with that of our own? The German officers endeavour to keep under shelter as long as possible their precious persons, so greatly superior, in their own estimation, to those of their men, and when they do muster the courage to come out into the open, they are content to follow behind their troops, with revolvers in their hands to exact obedience. We wish to reproduce here two or three citations taken at random among a thousand similar ones published in the _Journal Officiel de la République Française_, the official organ of the French Government, to give a vivid illustration of the way that officers ought to understand their duties: On September 1, 1914, _Major Parisot de la Boisse_ said to his chasseurs: “I give you my word of honour, as long as one of us remains alive, the enemy shall not pass.” In spite of heavy losses, though nearly surrounded, he extricated his troops and maintained the fight. The Pass de Mandray he defended remains French! _Captain Robert Dubarle._ “A living example of impassibility under fire, contempt of danger, energy, and initiative.”