ive efforts for its conquest.

A TERRIFIC ARTILLERY DUEL.

For many weeks the battle for Verdun was signalized by the most terrific
artillery fire in history. No words can tell of the ear-stunning roar of
the guns, or depict the horror of the tons of steel daily crashing and
splintering amid massed bodies of men, while the softly-falling snows of
late winter covered, but could not conceal, the ensanguined landscape.
Modern warfare was seen at Verdun in all its panoply of terror. Amid
fire and fury, the rich and fertile countryside was transformed into
a vast scene of ruin and desolation, while heroism and self-sacrifice
abounded on both sides, men were maddened by the frenzy of the fight and
the ghastly horrors of night and day, and Death stalked gloatingly and
glutted, but never surfeited, over the bloody field.

The German attacks followed one another so fast and so furiously that
the weeks of fighting became one prolonged battle, and a description of
one attack will almost serve for all. Thus, a wounded French officer
said of the seven days of continuous fighting which opened the German
offensive against Verdun: "The first symptom of the battle favorable
to the French was the inability of the Germans to silence the French
artillery. The attack opened with strong reconnoitering parties
advancing, wherein was noted an unusually large proportion of officers.
For the first time the German officers were seen to be leading their men
into battle, instead of driving them, as had been the rule--and this was
said to be at the behest of the watching Kaiser. Then came the infantry
in great numbers. During the next two days the fighting waxed fiercer
and fiercer.

"At first fourteen German divisions were engaged, then sixteen, and
finally seventeen divisions (340,000 men). The French command at this
point carried out a maneuver which will be recorded as a masterpiece in
military history.

"If the Germans had been only fifteen yards away, the French could
have been submerged by the attack, providing the attacking forces were
prepared to make any sacrifice, but the distance being 1,500 yards there
was little chance for the Germans against the opposing artillery. The
French troops were accordingly swung back to positions from which they
could see the Germans approaching over exposed ground. The effect was
that the immediate front of the attack, which was originally twenty-five
miles in extent, was reduced to nine miles, but eve