ng across the crest of the hills
facing the Germans--a stretch of ground ploughed deep now into a
hundred furrows, shattered and shell-swept, and blasted in a thousand
places into deep pits and craters--watched first as those small
advance-parties, sent by the enemy to reconnoitre the situation, were
shot down or driven back to shelter; and watched now with straining
eyes and with many an exclamation as a horde of grey-coated infantry
debouched from the evergreen woods encircling the eastern and northern
slopes of the approaches to their position, and, forming up there,
advanced steadily to attack them. They were still a great distance
away, yet within effective rifle range; but as yet the time had not
come to deal with them from the trenches. There were the guns right
behind, cleverly hidden, dug in, posted in many an odd corner, laid
upon the enemy from many a crevice in the ground and many a convenient
hollow. Indeed, already the sharp snap of those soixante-quinze had
begun to punctuate the air, and shrapnel-bursts could be seen above the
evergreen tree-tops upon the snow-clad slopes, and over hollows where
the enemy were massing. But now, as the enemy cannonade died down a
little, and that torrent of shells which had been hurtling upon the
French trenches ceased a trifle, the din of the German bombardment was
rendered almost noiseless, was shut out, as it were, was eclipsed, by
the demoniacal rattle of those French 75's casting shell at the
advancing enemy. The massed ranks marching from the cover of the
trees, heads of columns appearing at the summit of many a ravine which
gave access to the heights, battalions forming up outside their
shelter, were smashed and rent by a tornado of shrapnel and shell which
blew in the faces of the German formations, which severed the heads of
columns from the bodies, which drove hideous gaps and holes in the
centre of the ranks, and sent the mass, bleeding and broken and
shattered, doubling back into cover.

But if the French had withstood that terrific bombardment to which a
short sector of their front before Verdun had been subjected for so
many hours, and had held on to a position, which others might well have
termed untenable, with grim determination, the Kaiser's infantry were
to prove on this eventful day--as on many another which followed--that
they too were possessed of the strongest heroism. Governed by the
strictest discipline, hounded on by armed officers if they