forever. In many a mansion, in many a
comfortable home, in many a peasant's cottage, the empty chair is
eloquent of the absent father, brother, husband or son who shall be
absent forever.

CHAPTER X

GERMAN ADVANCE ON PARIS

_Allies Withdraw for Ten Days, Disputing Every Inch of
Ground With the Kaiser's Troops--Germans Push
Their Way Through France in Three Main Columns--
Reports of the Withdrawing Engagements--
Paris Almost in Sight_.

Flushed with their successes over the Allies at Mons and Charleroi,
the Germans pushed their advance toward the French capital with great
celerity and vigor. During the last week of August and the first few
days of September, it appeared inevitable that the experience of Paris
in 1870-71 was to be repeated and that a siege of the city by the German
forces would follow immediately.

It was conceded that the armies of the Allies had been forced back and
that Paris was endangered. The German advance was general, all along the
line. The flower of the Kaiser's army had marched through Belgium
and pushed back the lines of the Allies to the formidable rows of
fortifications that surround Paris. The Germans advanced in three main
columns, constantly in touch with one another, from the right, passing
through Mons, Cambrai and Amiens, to the extreme left in Lorraine. The
center threatened Verdun, and from that point the right advance swept
through Northern France like an opening fan, with the fortress of Verdun
as the pivot.

Three million men were engaged in the main struggle. When the Germans
first reached the Franco-Belgian frontier near Charleroi they were
opposed by 700,000 French and 150,000 British troops. After being driven
back the Allies began assembling 1,000,000 men between the frontier and
Paris, The Allies hoped to hold the whole German army in check while
the Russians pursued their successes in eastern Germany. French troops
guarded the entire frontier, battling to check the other German invading
columns. The holding of the Germans, once they broke through the
fortifications that formed the chief reliance of the French, would
be impossible. The next stand would be around Paris, which was well
fortified. The invaders were, of course, attempting to get through where
there were no forts.

ALLIES MAKE STRENUOUS RESISTANCE

Strenuous resistance to the onward movement of the German enemy was made
by the Allies from day to day, but for a period of ten days the