All this turning of tables has been brought about by one cause, in the sense that if that cause had been absent, the care and skill of the finest leaders, the daring of all our airmen, the staunchness of all our infantry would have been strength to no purpose. Munition workers have woven the curtain of smoke that our gunners now draw between our advancing troops and the eyes of their enemy. It is munitions that, thrown from our howitzers, make level roads through the tangles of wire on which, in the old days, the corpses of whole platoons of our men were hung up to rot and look, from far off, like washing put out to dry on thorned hedges. It is munitions that, when we attack, hold back the hostile supports behind a wall of falling bullets as hard to pass as Adam found the flaming sword at the gate. It is, then, not without reason that in this sheaf of drawings of the war on the Western front are included some drawings of guns and shells in the making. They are drawings of victory in the making, and of the saving of hundreds of thousands of British lives. G.H.Q., FRANCE, _March, 1917_ LXI MOUNTING A GREAT GUN One of the largest guns viewed from the breech. However many large guns may have been turned out by the same men before, a glow of pride is always felt in a gun shop when one more masterpiece like this is ready at last to go out to its work in the field. [Illustration] LXII ERECTING AEROPLANES A great contrast to the scenes in the gun shop. Here everything is light and delicate, the bright, varnished wood curved to delicate shapes like violins, the women flitting with their needlecraft around the wide, dazzling planes and the brilliant pigmy engines shining like jewels--all seem gay and exhilarating after the sombre company of the guns. There is even a lightsome airiness about the thought that these delicate creations _fly_ away from their makers’ hands when completed and do not burden any railway with their transit. [Illustration] LXIII AN AEROPLANE ON THE STOCKS Another view of the same shop. Close to, the propeller seems a great thing, wonderfully subtle in its graceful curves. [Illustration] LXIV THE GIANT SLOTTERS These machines are among the largest of their kind. A row of them, jutting colossally forward like the heads of Egyptian sculptured lions, make an impressive feature in the spacious avenues of a great machine shop. The nearer machine is at work on part of a big gun mounting. [Illustration] LXV NIGHT WORK ON THE BREECH OF A GREAT GUN The breech is open: underneath it, hidden from sight, the mechanics are at work. Such a scene has a special appeal to those who loved the stories of Jules Verne in their youth. These largest of all guns seem as if they could fulfil the hopes of Verne’s sanguine President of the Gun Club and justify his fervid belief in ballistics as your only science. [Illustration] LXVI THE HOWITZER SHOP