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[page 53]
103
(6).
What time does the train go? Where do I change? All this information is supplied from a little office on the wharf and within an hour or two the crowd has melted away, some to catch trains at once for their destination, others to wait over until morning. I am to wait over, and am soon in bed at the Hotel Louvre - every French town of any size has a "Hotel Louvre" so the Censor can't accuse me of disclosing our landing place. How typical of France are the sounds which drift up to me from the street. The rattling trams with their motor horns in lieu of warning gongs, the carts bumping over the cobbled streets, occasionally a horse with bells round its collar, the railway engines with their peculiar way of blowing off steam, the shunters running about blowing horns, the arguments in high pitched voices on the pavement below, all are so inseparable from the French town. In the morning I take train for the Base at which we assembled on arriving from Egypt back in March.
1st. December, 1916. Let us turn for a moment to the situation in this world war as it appears to-day. For the present mud seems to be the outstanding feature on all fronts and whilst this lasts nothing much in the way of progress can be hoped for. The re-organization of the Government of Great Britain and the appointment of a War Council of five has met with the approval of all classes. It was the only rational thing to do as the people had lost faith in the old Governments ability to run such a war as this. We can now at least hope for a forceful businesslike management of the war.
I had hopes that the Somme offensive this year was going to mark the turning point in the war: that after being battered for two years we were going to take the lead and start the unceasing pressure on the enemy's lines that was to eventually break downthe German military power. That this was going to take a long