he city of 150
bombardments, which the Germans took when they came south and lost
later. Above it was the Bois-le-Pretre, in which guns were now booming
occasionally. Far to the north was another hill, just visible, and its
slope toward us was cut and seamed with yellow slashes: Those were the
French trenches, then of the second or third line; beyond there was
still another hill, it was slightly blurred in the haze, but it was
not over five miles away, and it was occupied by the Germans. From the
slope above me on a clear day it is possible to see Metz, so near are
French and German lines to the old frontier.

Straight across the river to the west of us was another wood, with a
glorious name, the Forest of the Advance Guard. It swept to the south
of us. In that wood the Germans had also planted their guns on the day
of battle. They had swept the trenches where I stood from three sides.
Plainly it had been a warm corner. But the French had held on. Their
commander had received a verbal order to retreat. He insisted that it
should be put in writing, and this took time. The order came. It had
to be obeyed, but he obeyed slowly. Reluctantly the men left the
trenches they had held so long. They slipped southward along the road
by which we had come. But suddenly their rear guards discovered the
Germans were also retreating. So the French came back and the line of
St. Genevieve was held, the northern door to Nancy was not forced.

Looking down again it was not difficult to reconstitute that German
assault, made at night. The thing was so simple the civilian could
grasp it. A road ran through the valley and along it the Germans had
formed; the slope they had to advance up was gentle, far more gradual
than that of San Juan. They had been picked troops selected for a
forlorn hope, and they had come back four times. The next morning the
whole forest had been filled with dead and dying. Not less than a
division--20,000 men--had made the terrible venture. Now there was a
strange sense of emptiness in the country; war had come and gone, left
its graves, its trenches, its barbed-wire entanglements; but these
were all disappearing already. On this beautiful spring morning it was
impossible to feel the reality of what happened here, what was
happening now, in some measure, five miles or more to the north.
Nature is certainly the greatest of all pacifists; she will not permit
the signs of war to endure nor the mind to believe that war i