The events of the week on the Western front ought
to have silenced all who supposed that the Germans were leading Sir Douglas Haig's forces into a trap. It was not really a difficult thing for the Germans gradually to withdraw their men, for such movements are as invisible as the movements of rabbits in their burrows. But it did not follow that the Germans were leading us into a trap. However, there is a type of mind which believes that when we advance we are putting our heads into a noose, and that when the enemy advances he is beating us to a frazzle, as the Americans say ; and if ever we reach Potsdam there will certainly be some one quite ready to call it a trap. Both British and French have performed prodigies of engineering and labour in road-making, rail-laying, and bridge-making. The terrible solitude which the Germans have left for us to advance over has its moral advantages as well as its physical disadvantages. Mr. Kipling has written of the spirit of soldiers who had " seen their dead." The French have seen their dead country. Their spirit as a result is irresistible. They have surprised even their own officers.
