Neil
Please do post those articles.
Rich, your commentary, while eminently reasonable in the context of the supplied quotes, ultimately may be unfair.
It may be a case of "know your audience.". The excerpt comes from a transcript of a lecture Mac gave to military engineers. Possibly, Mackenzie may have sized up his audience as keen on costs and sought to win them over on their terms.
Or it could be a case of -- crap, what's the term in rhetoric where you pander to an audience's desire without mentioning it? Not unstated premise -- of an unmentioned but desired goal. Trench collapses were known among his audience for the cost in human life. His audience may have regarded safer methods as more expensive but may have been stymied in their efforts by the higher ups.
It is of course possible this is really how Mac thought. A defining theme, arguably THE defining theme, across his military and golf writings alike, is "economy."
My argument against this interpretation is Mac's repeated condemnation of professional soldiers to use camouflage (one American general notably and regrettably referred to it as "Injun fighting"), and to their refusal to construct trenches in accordance with camouflage principles.
In these areas his rationale was clear and forceful: the needless loss of men.
Neil, a very good close reading of the two texts. A budding Deconstructionist you are!
It certainly is possible. In May 1918 the Special Works Park, the military's camouflage organization and located in the field, reorganized. One result was to bring the Special Works School (note the "camouflage" used for both orgs' names, a concept extended to the project which developed the "tank") under the direct control for the first time of the leadership of the Park.
As part of this reorg, an officer at Park HQ was sent over to head up the School. He reported into Wyatt, the head of the Park.
Included in the reorg was the establishment of a program whereby camouflage personnel assigned to the Park were rotated through the School to both receive the lessons of School "faculty" as well as share their field experience, presumably a progenitor of what eventually came to be known as "reality therapy."
The reorg along with the rotational program would have made it much more likely for Mac's views to receive an airing with the people who had the power to implement it, as well as for those views to have been "dug into the ground."
Mark
PS Put me down as a Blackadder fan, to the point where I purchased the entire series on DVD - and hacked my North Am machine's code so it could play them!
PPS It must however take second place behind the greatest TV series ever: Yes, (Prime) Minister!