WITH OUR ARMY IN FLANDERS [Illustration: _From the drawing by Georges Scott._ _Reproduced from “L’Illustration” by kind permission._ _Silent Ypres._] WITH OUR ARMY IN FLANDERS BY G. VALENTINE WILLIAMS LONDON EDWARD ARNOLD 1915 _All rights reserved_ TO THE BRITISH SOLDIER PREFACE In the words of the Chief of the Italian General Staff, the war correspondent is the link between that part of the nation that fights and that part which is watching--“a noble and fertile mission, as great as any mission ever was, and as necessary, too, for no army can long and resolutely march to victory if it has not the support and enthusiasm of the whole country behind it.” As the accredited correspondent of the _Daily Mail_ at the General Headquarters of Field-Marshal Sir John French, I have spent the greater part of the past six months with the British Army in Flanders. I have seen for myself the life and work of our army in the field. I have visited in person the trenches along practically our whole front. I have talked with our organizers of victory from the Commander-in-Chief downwards to the man in the saphead ten yards from the enemy. This book is the result. It was written in the field, under the Censorship. That familiar phrase, “Passed by Censor,” stands at the foot of every chapter in the manuscript, as it will stand at the foot of this preface. To that part of the nation which is watching at home I could, in fulfilment of my mission, have offered a more detailed narrative of the life of that other part that is fighting in Flanders, did not considerations of military necessity stand in the way. But, apart altogether from the question of patriotism, the large measure of trust which the army has, in most instances, extended to the writer has made me the more anxious to respect a privileged position, and to eschew anything calculated to afford to the enemy the least information of value. My endeavour has rather been to present a picture of the life of our army in Flanders built up out of a series of impressions, to reveal the soul of the army as it has been unbared to me in the actual conditions of warfare. If I should not seem to paint war as terrible or our task in Flanders as stupendous as it is, you must set it down to the army’s contagious habit of making the best of things. The army knows that, man for man, it is more than a match for the German. It knows that, given a lead, it can draw upon resources which, both physically and mentally, are better than anything the Germans have now remaining. With unconcealed impatience it looks to the Government at home to increase our machinery of war until, in this respect as well, we can claim superiority over our redoubtable and unscrupulous foe.