es defied them; and, tiring, as it
were, of the venture in that direction, yet determined as ever to
capture Verdun and the salient, they once more changed their line of
attack. Crossing the Meuse, they flung their details against the Mort
Homme and Hill 304, hoping to capture those positions and sweep away
the guns which enfiladed the Cote du Poivre. The removal of these
would allow them to continue that advance from the north which
threatened to shorten the base of the salient and to capture its
defenders.

If we were to venture to describe every attack made by the Germans,
every gallant defence of the French _poilus_, and the course in detail
of the terrific conflict which raged--and, indeed, still rages as we
write--round the salient of Verdun, we should require a multiplicity of
chapters. For, indeed, foiled at the outset by the failure of their
giant attack to do more than drive the French on to their main
positions, in spite of the huge advantage of a surprise effected on the
21st February, and forced, as it were, by public opinion--the opinion
of Germans at home, of their Austrian allies, and of every neutral
country in the world--the Kaiser's war lords kept desperately at the
task of subduing the salient. Not one, but dozens of assaults were
made either upon the Mort Homme and Hill 304 positions, or upon the
plateau of Douaumont, extending at times to the farm of Thiaumont, and
later, after weeks and weeks of conflict, to the fort of Vaux and the
trenches south of it. The most gigantic attack on any one position
that has ever been recorded in the history of the world was accompanied
by other facts hitherto never seen in warfare.

The hosts of German troops concentrated on the face of the salient
approached at times three-quarters of a million, and needed constant
replenishment; for French 75's, machine-gun and rifle-fire bit deep
into the ranks, and soldiers--hundreds of them, nay, thousands--fell,
till the slopes leading to Mort Homme and to the gentle wooded heights
of the Meuse became a mere shambles. Four months of fighting, indeed,
found General Joffre and his brave troops still holding the line, still
selling inches of the hills when the pressure became too great or the
enemy gun-fire too fierce to be withstood--selling those inches at a
price which can only be termed grisly and exorbitant--and now and again
counter-attacking, when pressure from the enemy had forced them to
yield ground of vital v