But surely some way out could be found by which the Australians’ own Brigade of Tanks should not be thus cruelly dismembered? And the authorities, with positively avuncular benevolence--after a little humming and hahing--were actually induced to make another arrangement; as the friends firmly believed, solely upon their representations. There were, however, other more military considerations. The attack was still to be under Brigadier-General Courage, but an extra Battalion, the 9th, should be added to the Brigade for the occasion. This apparently whimsical outcry of the new-found affinities, and the yielding of the authorities, were to be justified thrice over in the events of the next few months. For at this early period a little thing might upset the forging of a weapon which was to prove the two-edged sword with which we were to “smite Amalek hip and thigh.” As soon as it had been decided that the 9th Battalion was to go, preparations were at once begun. The French plans were already well advanced before the Tanks came upon the scene at all. The attacking troops had indeed been in the area since April, but the Tanks felt that they would be eternally disgraced if they were obliged so much as to hint that they would like even a day’s postponement of this, their first battle with the French. Indeed in this battle we see the first instance of the wonderful “speeding up” which the Allied Army underwent almost as soon as the joint command was concentrated in the hands of Marshal Foch. An officer who was present throughout the battle and its preliminaries writes: “On a certain Wednesday General Elles and General Courage had an interview at 3 p.m. with the 4th Army Commander and were consulted as to the project. “At 4.30 they saw General Debeney (the French Army Commander) and the French Corps Commander, when railheads and a general scheme of movement were decided upon. “That night the 9th Battalion was warned, and the battle took place at dawn on the following Tuesday.” Practice makes perfect, and we gradually discovered that the kind of full-dress attacks for which we had always, as a matter of course, allowed a month of preparation, could, in fact, be staged in half that time. We see in the huge Battle of Amiens, of which only ten days’ notice was given to the troops who took part, how great a reform we managed to accomplish. II The attack was to be at dawn on July 23, and was to be--like Hamel--a more or less limited and experimental battle. Its immediate object was to seize St. Ribert Wood in order to outflank Mailly Raineval from the south, to abolish certain highly objectionable German batteries which lay near St. Ribert, and to advance the French field guns eastward in such a way that they would bear upon the high ridges which dominate the right bank of the river Avre.