If Lord Curzon% remarks were timely and serviceable, the position
was further • improved by Lord Derby's speech at the Aldwych Club on Tuesday. We learn from that speech that our surmise last week as to the reasons of the reverse at Cambrai was correct. There was no failure in Staff work, but a particular part of the line was not very strongly held. " There is no doubt that a certain risk was taken by holding this part of the line rather lightly." But as we pointed out last week, and as Lord Derby said in his speech, risks of this sort must be accepted if large results are ever to be achieved. When the weak point is discovered by the enemy, and the situation is turned to his advantage, the General who knowingly allowed the line to remain weak is accused of a blunder. It matters nothing to the critic with a reviling turn of mind that the troops withheld from the weak part of the line had a tremendous success placed within their grasp. Such risks are unquestionably worth accepting. It is not even enough for a critic to say that by asking a weakened line to hold a certain position our Generals asked the men to do too much—to do the impossible. Our men have been asked to do the impossible over and over again and have done it., notably at Ypres in 1914 and 1915. At Cambrai, as it happened, the impossible was not achieved and the line broke.
