The World Crisis, Vol. 1: 1911 - 1914 by Winston S. Churchill

Author:Winston S. Churchill [Churchill, Winston S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Europe, History, Military, Non-Fiction, War, Political Science
ISBN: 9780795331305
Publisher: RosettaBooks
Published: 2013-09-22T16:00:00+00:00

I was afraid of Joffre’s strategy at first and thought he ought to have taken the offensive much sooner, but he was quite right.

I felt it vitally important to my whole structure of thought on this war problem to see for myself with my own eyes what was passing at the front and what were the conditions of this new war, and to have personal contact with Sir John French. Reflection and imagination can only build truly when they are checked point by point by direct impressions of reality. I believed myself sufficiently instructed to derive an immense refreshment of judgment from personal investigation without incurring the opposite danger of a distorted view through particular experiences. But it was not until the armies came to a standstill along the line of the Aisne, that I felt justified in asking Lord Kitchener to allow me to accept the repeated invitations of Sir John French. He gladly gave his permission and I started the next morning. On September 16 the Duke of Westminster drove me from Calais to the British Headquarters at La Fère-en-Tardenois. We made a fairly wide detour as we had no exact information as to where the flanks of the moving armies actually lay, and it was not until nightfall that we fell in with the left flank of the British line. Sir John had all his arrangements ready made for me, and the next day between daylight and dark I was able to traverse the entire British artillery front from the edge of the Craonne Plateau on the right to the outskirts of Soissons on the left. I met everybody I wanted to meet and saw everything that could be seen without unnecessary danger. I lunched with ‘The Greys,’ then commanded by that fine soldier, Colonel Bulkeley-Johnson. I had a long talk with Sir Henry Rawlinson on a haystack from which we could observe the fire of the French artillery near Soissons. I saw for the first time what then seemed the prodigy of a British aeroplane threading its way among the smoke-puffs of searching shells. I saw the big black German shells, ‘the coal boxes’ and ‘Jack Johnsons’ as they were then called, bursting in Paissy village or among our patient, impassive batteries on the ridge. I climbed to a wooded height beneath which the death-haunted bridge across the Aisne was visible. When darkness fell I saw the horizon lighted with the quick flashing of the cannonade. Such scenes were afterwards to become commonplace: but their first aspect was thrilling. I dined with the young officers of the Headquarters Staff and met there, for the last time, alas, my brilliant, gallant friend, Hugh Dawnay. Early next morning I opened with Sir John French the principal business I had to discuss, namely, the advantage of disengaging the British Army from its position on the Aisne and its transportation to its natural station on the sea flank in contact with the Navy. I found the Field-Marshal in the most

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