sistance will soon be broken. Russia will be very quickly dealt
with; of this there is no doubt.

"'We have received splendid help from the Austrian heavy artillery at
Maubeuge. They bombarded Fort Cerfontaine in such a way that there was
not ten meters of parapet which did not show enormous craters made by
the shells. The armored turrets were found upside down.

"'Yesterday evening about 6, in the valley in which our reserves stood,
there was such a terrible cannonade that we saw nothing of the sky but a
cloud of smoke. We had few casualties.'

TELEPHONE AN AID TO SPIES

"Espionage is carried on by the enemy to a considerable extent. Recently
the suspicions of some of the French troops were aroused by coming
across a farm from which the horses had been removed. After some search
they discovered a telephone which was connected by an underground cable
with the German lines, and the owner of the farm paid the penalty in
the usual way in war for his treachery. "After some cases of village
fighting, which occurred earlier in the war, it was reported by some
of our officers that the Germans had attempted to approach to close
quarters by forcing prisoners to march in front of them. The Germans
have recently repeated the same trick on a larger scale against the
French, as is shown by the copy of an order issued by the French
officials. It is therein referred to as a ruse, but if that term can be
accepted, it is a distinctly illegal ruse.

REFERS TO RHEIMS CATHEDRAL

"Full details of the actual damage done to the cathedral at Rheims will
doubtless have been cabled, so that no description of it is necessary.
The Germans bombarded the cathedral twice with their heavy artillery.

"One reason it caught fire so quickly was that on one side of it was
some scaffolding which had been erected for restoration work. Straw had
also been laid on the floor for the reception of German wounded. It is
to the credit of the French that practically all the German wounded were
successfully extricated from the burning building.

"There was no justification on military grounds for this act of
vandalism, which seems to have been caused by exasperation born of
failure--a sign of impotence rather than of strength."

FIVE MORE DAYS OF BATTLE

On September 29 Field Marshal French's headquarters reported as follows:

"The general situation as viewed on the map remains practically the same
as that described in the last letter, and the task of th