Notes From the Front, 1914

These notes, written by ‘a General Officer at the Front’ and published in 1914, give a clear picture of conditions experienced, and lessons learned, in the first weeks and months of the Great War. There is a great emphasis on constructing defensive emplacements to protect men and guns from the devastating power of the German artillery from which ‘our infantry has suffered much’; and a corresponding recognition of the well-known superiority of the British rifleman in sheer rapidity of fire. There is also recognition that planes are replacing horses as spotters: ‘Long distance reconnaissance by cavalry has been entirely replaced by aeroplanes’. Even at this early stage the importance of digging trenches has been recognised, as well as the increasing part played by machine guns. Much of the booklet is based on conversations with officer eye-witnesses in France, and it is interesting as an example of how rapidly the Army responded to new methods of warfare.