But there must be a house and a room in Doullens, which ought already to be marked as national property, and will certainly be an object of travel in years to come for both English and French; no less than that factory to the west of Verdun where Castelnau and Petain conferred at the sharpest crisis of the immortal siege.

For there--so it is generally believed--the practical sense and generous temper of the British Commander brought about that change in the whole condition of the war which we know as the "unity of command." Sunday, March 24th, had been a particularly bad day in that vast defensive battle which, in General Haig's phrase, "strained the resources of the Allies to the uttermost." There had been difficulties and misunderstandings also--perfectly natural in the circumstances--with the French Army on the right of the British line.

Yet never was a perfect co-ordination of the whole Allied effort in face of the German attack so absolutely essential.
Sir Douglas Haig took the lead.

A year before this date he had refused in other circumstances, as one supremely responsible for the British Army, to agree to a unified command under a French general, and the events had justified him.

But now the hour had arrived, and the man.
The proposal that General Foch should take the supreme control of the four Allied armies now fighting or gathering in France was made and pressed by Sir Douglas Haig.