upon the Tenth French Army, the first of that great chain of armies that spreads, with one short gap, to the faraway Swiss mountains. All through August and September the roads behind the Allied front had been covered by infantry and artillery, and even towards the end by cavalry, all moving eastwards through the all-pervading chalk dust. Rumour, as ever, was busy with conjecture. This was merely a feint, maintained the pessimists, the real advance is to lie with the French in Champagne. Nonsense, replied the optimists, this is at last the long-looked-for general advance, the death-blow of trench warfare, the dawning of the millennium when the Battle of Position shall give way to the Battle of Movement, the beginning of the final struggle that will end only with the death-throes of the enemy on the Rhine! Whatever were one's individual opinions, the scent of battle, the glorious prospect of a "scrap," was in the air, and spirits rose accordingly. Slowly, from the august sources wherein the strategy of armies has its birth, the true intentions of the Allies percolated. Looking back now, it seems that too much was allowed to be known from the first. Documents containing detailed programmes of the proposed operations were circulated in some cases as much as a fortnight before the selected day, and in the field it is impossible to prevent the contents of such documents becoming common knowledge within an incredibly short time, which is practically equivalent to sending the originals across to the enemy with one's compliments. It was subsequently established by the examination of prisoners that the German General Staff had full knowledge of our plans many days before the attack took place, and had, indeed, made dispositions to meet it. It is undoubtedly essential to circulate beforehand exact instructions as to the part that each unit is to perform in contemplated operations, but it is extremely doubtful if it is expedient to do so until the last possible moment. Apart from the danger of leakage to the enemy, it is always found, as indeed in this case, that the interval that elapses between the receipt of instructions and their execution is filled with a storm of amplifications, contradictions and amendments, poured out by intermediate commanders, until the unfortunate commander of a unit is faced, when called upon to act, by an accumulation of mutually incompatible orders. If a strong man, he throws them all indiscriminately into the fire, and, acting by the light of his own commonsense and initiative, stands a fair chance of succeeding; if a weak man, he endeavours to act upon them all, and, with deadly certainty, fails.