ward. He was one of Hammond's men.

We had left the brick shelter and were collecting the men on the road outside Noreuil, when the colonel rode up and gave us news of Davies and Clarkson. Our aeroplanes had seen two tanks crawling over the open country beyond the Hindenburg trenches to Riencourt, followed by four or five hundred cheering Australians. Through Riencourt they swept, and on to the large village of Hendecourt five miles beyond the trenches. They entered the village, still followed by the Australians.

What happened to them afterwards cannot be known until the battlefield is searched and all the prisoners who return have been questioned. The tanks and the Australians never came back. The tanks may have been knocked out by field-guns. They may have run short of petrol. They may have become" ditched." Knowing Davies and Clarkson, I am certain they fought to the last -and the tanks which later were paraded through Berlin were not my tanks.

...

We rallied fifty-two officers and men out of the one hundred and three who had left Mory or Behagnies for the battle. Two men were detailed to guard our dump outside Noreuil, the rescued tank started for Mory, and the remaining officers and men marched wearily to VaulxVraucourt, where lorries and a car were awaiting them.

I walked up to the Railway Embankment, but seeing no

VOL. CCV.-NO. MCCXLIV.

signs of any of my men or of Davies' or Clarkson's tanks, returned to Noreuil and paid a farewell visit to the two brigadiers, of whom one told me with natural emphasis that tanks were "no damned use." Then with Skinner and Jumbo I tramped up the valley towards Vraucourt through the midst of numerous field-guns. We had passed the guns when the enemy began to shell the crowded valley with heavy stuff, directed by an aeroplane that kept steady and unwinking watch on our doings.

Just outside Vaulx-Vraucourt we rested on a sunny slope and looked across the valley at our one surviving tank trekking back to Mory. Suddenly a "5.9" burst near it. The enemy were searching for guns. Then to our dismay a second shell burst at the tail of the tank. The tank stopped, and in a moment the crew were scattering for safety. A third shell burst within a few yards of the tank. The shooting seemed too accurate to be unintentional, and we cursed the aeroplane that was circling overhead.

There was nothing we could do. The disabled tank was two miles away. We knew that when the shelling stopped the crew would return and inspect the damage. So, sick at heart, we tramped on to VaulxVraucourt, passing a reserve brigade coming up hastily, and a dressing station to which a ghastly stream of stretchers was flowing.

We met the car a mile beyond the village, and drove

3 K

some

The enemy held the Australians stoutly. We never reached Bullecourt, and soon it became only too clear that it would be difficult enough to retain the trenches we had entered. The position was nearly desperate. The right brigade had won trenches, and the left brigade had won some trenches. Between the two brigades the enemy had never been dislodged. And he continued to counter-attack with skill and fury down the trenches on the flanks-from the sunken roads by Bullecourt and up the communication trenches from the north. In the intervals his artillery pounded away with solid determination. Bombs and ammunition were running very short, and to get further supplies forward was terribly expensive work, for all the approaches to the trenches which the Australians had won were enfiladed by machine-gun fire. Battalions of the reserve brigade were thrown in too late, for we had bitten off more than we could chew; the Germans realised this hard faot, and redoubled their efforts. The Australians sullenly retired. The attack had failed.

A few days later the Germans replied by a surprise attack on the Australian line from Noreuil to Lagnicourt. At first they succeeded and broke through to the guns; but the Australians soon rallied,

vengeful massacre. The Germans, soreaming for mercy, were deliberately and scientifically killed.

Two of my men, who had been left to guard our dump of supplies at Noreuil, took part in this battle of Lagnicourt. Close by the dump was a battery of field howitzers. The Germans had broken through to Nereuil, and the howitzers were firing over the sights; but first one howitzer and then another became silent as the gunners fell. My two men had been using rifles. When they saw what was happening they dashed forward to the howitzers, and turning their knowledge of the tank 6-pdr. gun to 80count, they helped to serve the howitzers until some infantry came up and drove back the enemy. Then my men went back to their dump, which had escaped, and remained there on guard until they were relieved following day.

on the

The first battle of Bullecourt was a minor disaster. Our attack was a failure, in which the three brigades of infantry engaged lost very heavily indeed; and the officers and men lost, seasoned Australian troops who had fought at

Gallipoli, could never be replaced. The company of tanks had been, apparently, nothing but a broken reed. For many months after the Australians distrusted tanks, and it was not until the battle of Amiens, sixteen months later, that the Division engaged at Bullecourt were fully converted. It was a disaster that the Australians attributed to the tanks. The tanks had failed them-the tanks "had let them down."

The Australians, in the bitterness of their losses, looked for scapegoats and found them in my tanks, but my tanks were not to blame. I have heard a lecturer say that to attack the Hindenburg Line on a front of fifteen hundred yards without support on either flank was rash. And it must not be forgotten that the attack ought to have been, and in actual fact was, expected. The artillery support was very far from overwhelming, and the barrage, coming down at zero, gave away the attack before my tanks could cross the wide No Man's Land and reach the German trenches.

What chances of success the attack possessed were destroyed by the snow on the ground, the decision to leave the centre of the attack to the tanks alone, the late arrival of the reserve brigade, and the shortage of bombs and ammunition in the firing line. These unhappy circumstances fitted into each other. If the snow had not made clear targets of the tanks, the tanks by them

selves might have driven the enemy out of their trenches in the centre of the attack. If the first stages of the attack had been completely successful, the reserve brigade might not have been required. If the Australians had broken through the trench system on the left and in the centre, as they broke through on left of the right brigade, bombs would not have been necessary.

It is difficult to estimate the value of tanks in a battle. The Australians naturally contended that without tanks they might have entered the Hindenburg Line. I am fully prepared to admit that the Australians are capable of performing any feat, for as storm troops they are surpassed by none. It is, however,

undeniable that my tanks disturbed and disconcerted the enemy. We know from a report captured later that the enemy fire was concentrated on the tanks, and the German Higher Command instanced this battle as an operation in which the tanks compelled the enemy to neglect the advancing infantry. The action of the tanks was not entirely negative. On the right flank of the right brigade, a weak and dangerous spot, the tanks enabled the Australians to form successfully a defensive flank.

The most interesting result of the employment of tanks was the break-through to Riencourt and Hendecourt by Davies' and Clarkson's tanks, and the Australians who

flanks in the air, and in the face of the sturdiest opposition, half a section of tanks and about half a battalion of infantry broke through the strongest field-works in France and captured two villages, the second of which was nearly five miles behind the German line. This break-through was the direct forefather of the break-through at Cambrai. My men, tired and halftrained, had done their best. When General Elles was told the story of the battle, he said, "This is the best thing that tanks have done yet."

The company received two messages of congratulation. The first was from General Gough

"The Army Commander is very pleased with the gallantry and skill displayed by your company

in the attack to-day, and the fact that the objectives were subsequently lost does not detract from the success of the tanks."

The second was from General Elles

"The
Commanding
Branch M.G.C. wishes to
convey to all ranks of the
company under your com-
mand his heartiest thanks
and appreciation of the
manner in which they
carried out their tasks
during the recent opera-
tions, and furthermore for
the gallantry shown by
all tank commanders and
tank crews in action."

General Officer
Heavy

The company gained two Military Crosses, one D.C.M., and three Military Medals in the first Battle of Bullecourt.

THERE has never been a more strangely fantastic fashion in literary criticism than that which would strip from Shakespeare the glory of his works. Certain ingenious persons, dissatisfied with the poet's brow, are intent to find another which seems to them more apt for the bays. It does not matter much whose brow it is, so long as it is not Shakespeare's. Some there are who would seek the author of "Hamlet" in the Inns of Court. Others, equally naïve, ransack the peerage for a suitable candidate. There was a time when Roger the 5th Earl of Rutland was a hot favourite, and the fact that he was but fifteen when "Love's Labour's Lost" was written, did not diminish the odds laid upon him. To-day, William, the 6th Earl of Derby, leads by several lengths, and all the fanatics, led by M. Abel Lefrano,1 are crying with one accord, "On, Stanley, on!" And we are only upon the threshold of research. There are still many unexplored corners in Burke's Peerage,' and the wreath of honour may be transferred to another head any day.

By a quick transition sceptioism passes to contempt. Those who begin by doubting Shakespeare's claim olaim to his own works commonly end by de

spising him for a pestilent fellow. In their eyes and on their tongues he is no longer the "sweet swan of Avon he is "the man of Stratford." And they who will not for a whim give up the well-established faith of centuries are denounced as "Stratfordians." Stratfordians! A name of honour, truly, since it is shared with Ben Jonson and Gabriel Harvey, with Milton and Sir John Suckling, with Davies of Hereford and countless other poets and wise men. And when M. Abel Lefranc pretends with satisfaction that "there is not unanimity in the camp of the Stratfordians," thus hinting at a still living conspiracy, he carries the jargon of fanaticism as far as it will go.

The blunder of these misguided critics proceeds from the vast assumption that they can tell from his works how and where a poet should be born, how educated, in what circles he should live, what friends he should buckle to his heart. They do not think much of Stratfordon-Avon as a cradle of poetry. They speak of it with a kind of animosity, and I should not be surprised if one day they joined their forces and razed it to the ground. They approve as little of Shakespeare's father as of Shakespeare's character.