On countless occasions in this war the teachings of the Regimental Officer have borne fruit, even after he himself had joined the great majority. In the assault on Neuve Chapelle in March the leading companies of the 1st 39th Garhwalis lost all their officers in the first ten minutes. But the brave little Nepalese hillmen never wavered. They had seen their officers die at the head of their companies. They remembered ... and it kept them firm. In the same historic fight the Scottish Rifles lost all their officers save one, Lieutenant Somervail, a Second Lieutenant of Special Reserve. But the men of this splendid regiment, whose tradition is that there shall be no surrender, went on behind their non-commissioned officers, despite heavy losses, against barbed wire and machine-guns, “moulding themselves,” as their regimental sergeant-major said to me afterwards, “on the glorious example of their officers.” When we recaptured at Hooge on August 9 the positions we lost on July 30, a party of twenty-five men of the 2nd Durham light Infantry, under the command of Lance-Corporal Smith, were lost in the dense smoke of battle, and held out alone in an obliterated trench for more than twenty-four hours, without orders, without connection with the rest of the troops, and only came away when they saw a fresh line being dug behind the line they were holding. The officers of this fine battalion had created in their men’s minds the proper idea of the functions of an officer, so that, when there were no officers left to lead, this young lance-corporal stepped forward and “carried on” in the best traditions of the service. In the firing-line you get down to bedrock. Character tells. The cult is of the “stout fellow,” the “thruster.” The men will vaguely admire the clever strategy of their Generals which enabled the soldier to sing: “We gave them hell At Neuve Chapelle. Here we are again!” But their outspoken praise of any one General will always be traceable back to qualities of personal bravery that he has displayed. If they admire and respect Sir John French, it is because they recall him on the South African veld, because they remember him sitting on the roadside with them among the shells during the retreat from Mons. If they think a world of Sir Douglas Haig, it is likewise because they have seen him in the midst of his men on many critical occasions, not forgetting that historic afternoon in the first battle of Ypres, when the Commander-in-Chief and Sir Douglas Haig, waiting at Hooge, heard the news that the Germans had broken our line, and later that the 2nd Worcesters had saved the day. In present circumstances practically the only Generals that come into direct contact with the men are the Brigadiers, and I have found that the Brigadiers who are the best loved are those who are constantly making the round of the trenches, who show the men that they are willing to expose themselves to the same perils as they ask the men to incur.