Our success at Hooge on August 9 showed us, albeit on a very small scale, what our infantry, adequately supported by artillery, can achieve. The Hooge affair was of quite minor importance, and had next to no bearing on the general situation. It was, however, of the deepest interest to all of us on the Western front, for at this engagement, almost for the first time, the guns had a free hand in the matter of ammunition. It was due to their thorough and devastating preliminary bombardment and their splendid support afterwards that our infantry were able to recapture the lost trenches, and to hold them against all German attempts to win them back. The battalions who took part in the attack against Hooge were brimful of gratitude towards the gunners. Not only had the guns done the work of cutting the barbed wire and of destroying the enemy’s machine-guns and defences in the most thorough manner, but the timing of the different operations of the artillery--the preliminary bombardment, the lifting on the front line and then the _tir de barrage_ (to prevent the Germans from sending up reinforcements)--was absolutely perfect. As a result, the attacking files were able to push on freely with no fear of coming under their own fire, for, with each position won, the rain of shells lifted and poured down farther ahead. A bombardment like this makes men optimistic. The infantry, waiting in the paling darkness before dawn for the preliminary bombardment to do its work, were elated as the heavy shells went plumping into the German trenches, as the curtain of smoke from the high-explosive drifted thicker and thicker in the twilight. The men’s comments were fierce and heartfelt. “Ah! they’re getting it at last, the ----s! That’ll learn ’em! Boom!” (as a shell exploded with a deafening crash). And when the storming-party went forward it was irresistible. The men “had their tails up,” as the army says. Not only did they hurl the Germans out of their trenches, but they held the positions. Every time the Germans massed for a counter-attack our guns were ready for them, and swept the attack away before it had properly developed. I was able to appreciate the elation of the men who fought at Hooge, because I had already seen, in past months, the evil effects of the shortage of shells. As I talked to these gallant fellows, full of their stories of the fight, I kept thinking of a position I had visited months before where, day after day, the Germans kept up an almost incessant bombardment with shells of all calibres. As so much of their strategy, their action was aimed at achieving a moral effect, like their senseless raids on undefended English seaside resorts. At this particular position they had no chance of breaking through our line, yet, so much do they believe in the effect of high-explosives in undermining the _moral_ of troops, that they fired away ammunition from their guns in the most reckless fashion.