Full information on these problems is still lacking from the German side, and without it, as indicated above, our conclusions must be indicated hypothetically. But all the evidence now available makes it clear that they are reasonably correct. Thus, Ludendorff, writing after a tour of the Western Front in December, 1916, laid stress on the urgent need of re-organizing the fighting power of the German Infantry. The machine-gun had become the chief fire-arm, and ‘our existing machine-guns’, he declared, ‘were too heavy for the purpose.... In order to strengthen our fire, at least in the most important parts of the chief theatre of war, it was necessary to create special Machine-gun Companies—so to speak, Machine-gun Sharp-shooters.’ Attention is also called in the German Commander’s authoritative _Memoirs_ to the need of hand-mines, grenades, and all quick-loading weapons, and to the formation of storm troops. ‘The course of the Somme Battle,’ continues the General, ‘had also supplied important lessons with respect to the construction and plan of our lines. The very deep underground forts in the front trenches had to be replaced by shallower constructions. Concrete “pill-boxes,” which, however, unfortunately took long to build, had acquired an increasing value. The conspicuous lines of trenches, which appeared as sharp lines on every aerial photograph, supplied far too good a target for the enemy Artillery. The system of defence had to be made broader and looser and better adapted to the ground. The large, thick barriers of wire, pleasant as they were when there was little doing, were no longer a protection. They withered under the enemy barrage’; and an angry tribute is paid in his chapter to the equipment of the _Entente_ Armies with war material, which ‘had been developed to an extent hitherto undreamed of,’ and to ‘the resolution of the _Entente_, their strangling starvation blockade, and their propaganda of lies and hate which was so dangerous to us.’ It is good to see ourselves as our enemy saw us after the Battle of the Somme. And, perhaps, though we are anticipating a month or two, we may conclude this chapter by a quotation from a German Army Order, hitherto unpublished, of April 4th, 1917. It illustrates from another angle the effects of those ‘_Entente_ Armies’ and ‘their propaganda’ to which Ludendorff alludes in such embittered terms. The Order ran: ‘A National Day has been decreed at home for April 12th, in the sense that members of the large Trade Unions and Associations give up that day’s income, salary or wage for the benefit of the Fatherland. ‘The wish has been expressed that this programme may be supported as follows: _viz._, that Officers and other Ranks may volunteer to give up their pay for one day. ‘All Officers and other Ranks who are willing to abandon for one day the amount of pay due to them will apply to,’ etc.