eeping, however, strongly
intrenched detachments of riflemen at all commanding points with
powerful artillery as their support.

Sunday night was a veritable pandemonium of destruction and tumult. All
night long, without cessation, the batteries of both sides, knowing
exactly their opponents' range, fired perpetually. All night long
searchlight bombs were thrown. All night long, golden and red and yellow
streams of flame or the sudden jagged flash of an explosion lit up the
black smoke of burning buildings and fields in the valley, or showed the
white puff-like low clouds of the bursting shrapnel. Not for an instant
did the roar diminish, not for a second was the kindly veil of night
left unrent by a fissure of vengeful flame. Yet, all night long, as
ceaselessly as the great guns poured out their angry fury, so did men
pour out their indomitable will, and in that hell light of battle flame
engineers labored to construct bridges, small bodies of troops moved
forward to join their comrades in the trenches who had been able to
make a footing the day before, and all night long, those ghastly yet
merciful accompaniments of a battle field--the ambulance corps--carried
on their work of relief. The searchlights swept up and down the valley,
like great eyes that watched to give direction to the venom of war.

At three o'clock in the morning of Monday, September 14, 1914, two
regiments were sent to capture a sugar factory strongly held by the
enemy. That sugar factory became a maelstrom. Three more regiments had
to be brought up and finally the guards, and even thus heavily
overpowered, the Germans successfully defended it until noon. They sold
their lives dearly--those defenders. That sugar factory stood on that
Monday as did Hogoumont at Waterloo. It delayed the advance of the
entire First Corps, but at four o'clock in the afternoon, Sir Douglas
Haig ordered a general advance. The last afternoon and evening scored a
distinct success for the English arms, and when at last it grew
absolutely too dark to see, that corps held a position stretching from
Troton to La Cour de Soupir. Its chief importance, however, was that it
gave the Allies a strongly intrenched position on the plateau itself.

It was of this day's fighting that, almost a month later, Sir John
French was able to say in his official dispatches:

"The action of the First Corps on this day under the direction and
command of Sir Douglas Haig was of so skillful, bold,