"In bravery the French and English soldiers are the only ones to be compared with the Russians," was the verdict of Napoleon. Bravery, however, whilst being undoubtedly magnificent, is, on the other hand, in modern warfare liable to become a constraining source of suicide unless backed by commensurate means both of offence and of defence. "The machine," as Mr. Lloyd George pointed out, when reviewing on December 20th, 1915, the progress of events of the preceding months, "the machine is essential to defend positions of peril, and it saves life, because the more machinery you have for defence, the more thinly you can hold the line. On the other hand it means fewer losses in attacking positions of peril, because it demolishes machine-gun emplacements, tears up barbed wire, destroys trenches." Again, "What we stint in material we squander in life."
How criminal had been the lack both of prevision and of provision in regard to meeting possible contingencies may be gathered from the fact that on March 15th, 1906, Major Seely, M.P., in the House of Commons, in moving a reduction in the Army Estimates (estimates which at that time did not exceed the modest sum of sixty millions per annum), said, "We could not afford to continue the present establishment, for the House would not grant the money, and the country would not provide the men."
The folly of it all was coming home to us with a vengeance. Proportionate to the former mean and niggardly "cheese-paring" was the resultant appalling rate at which life was now being squandered. "We were short of all kinds of military weapons," Mr. Lloyd George was forced to confess, "but the lack of high-explosive shell was paralysing"; then as if in condonation of all former sins of omission, "we believe that what is being done now to provide a supply of munitions equal to all possible requirements will astonish the world when it becomes known."
In this respect, therefore, it is, perhaps, not unnatural that interest of a widespread nature should centre round Crewe, in virtue of the quota of munitions which she, albeit unobtrusively, contributed to the "world's astonishment"; indeed a certain sense of bewilderment not untinged with pride cannot fail to supervene in the minds of that vast section of the community, to wit the travelling public, and in particular the great North-Western-loving public, when, the official veil of secrecy being drawn aside, the mental faculty is free to note and to assimilate the degree of resourcefulness, the versatility of the locomotive engineer.