ctory meant the fall
of Washington, the coming of despair to the North, an end of the Civil
War, which would bring independence and the prize for which they had
contended to the Confederates. And Lee failed at Gettysburg, not as
Napoleon failed at Waterloo or as MacMahon failed at Sedan, but he
failed, and his failure was the beginning of the end. The victory of
Gettysburg put new heart, new assurance into the North; it broke the
long illusion of an invincible Confederacy; it gave to Europe, to
London, and to Paris, even more promptly than to Washington, the
unmistakable message that the North was bound to win the Civil War.

I mean in a moment to discuss the military aspects of this conflict
about the Lorraine fortress, but before the military it is essential
to grasp the moral consequences of Verdun to France, to the Allies, to
Germany. Not since the Marne, not even then--because it was only after
a long delay that France really knew what had happened in this
struggle--has anything occurred that has so profoundly, so
indescribably, heartened the French people as has the victory at
Verdun. It is not too much to say that the victory has been the most
immediately inspiring thing in French national life since the disaster
at Sedan and that it has roused national confidence, hope, faith, as
nothing else has since the present conflict began.

In this sense rather than in the military sense Verdun was a decisive
battle and its consequences of far-reaching character. France as a
whole, from the moment when the attack began, understood the issue;
the battle was fought in the open and the whole nation watched the
communiques day by day. It was accepted as a terrible if not a final
test, and no Frenchman fails to recognize in all that he says the
strength, the power, the military skill of Germany.

And when the advance was checked, when after the first two weeks the
battle flickered out as did the French offensive in Champagne and the
former German drive about Ypres a year ago, France, which had held her
breath and waited, hoped, read in the results at Verdun the promise of
ultimate victory, felt that all that Germany had, all that she could
produce, had been put to the test and had failed to accomplish the
result for which Germany had striven--or any portion thereof.

War is something beyond armies and tactics, beyond strategy and even
military genius, and the real meaning of Verdun is not to be found in
lines held or lost,