francaise_--the soul of country and of
freedom, which triumphed here.

And not for France alone. At the moment when the attack on Verdun
began, although the British military power was strengthening month by
month, and the Military Service Act of May, 1916, which put the
finishing touch to Lord Kitchener's great work, was close at hand, the
French Army was still not only the principal, but the essential
element in the Western campaign. France, at Verdun, as in the Battle
of the Marne, was defending not only her own freedom, but the freedom
of Europe. A few months later, when the British Army of the Somme went
over its parapets at daybreak on July 1st, Verdun was automatically
relieved, and it was clear to all the world that Britain's
apprenticeship was past, and that another great military power had
been born into Europe, on whom, as we now know, the main
responsibilities of final victory were to rest. But at Verdun France
fought for _us_--for England and America no less than for herself; and
that thought must always deepen the already deep emotion with which
English eyes look out upon these tortured hills.

That dim line on the eastern ridge, which marks the ruins of Fort
Vaux, stands indeed for a story which has been entrusted by history to
the living memory of France's Allies, hardly less than to that of
France herself. As we pause among the crumbling trenches and
shell-holes to look back upon the height of Vaux, I seem to see the
lines of French infantry creeping up the hill, through the
communication trenches, in the dark, to the relief of their comrades
in the fort; the runners--eager volunteers--assuring communications
under the incessant hail of shell; the carrier-pigeons, when the fort
is altogether cut off, bringing their messages back to Headquarters;
the red and green signal lights shooting up from the ridge into the
night. One of these runners, when the siege was nearing its end,
arrived at an advance post, having by a miracle got through a terrible
barrage unhurt. "You might have waited a few instants," said the
Colonel, kindly. But the runner, astonished, showed the envelope. "My
Colonel, look--it is written--'_urgent!_'"

That was the spirit. Or listen to this fragment from the journal of
Captain Delvert, defending one of the redoubts that protect Fort Vaux:

"Six o'clock--the bombardment has just begun again. The
stretcher-bearer, L----, has just been leaning a few
moments--worn out--aga