the wonderful motor-transport
system which had been improvised had proved adequate to save a city
deprived of all railroad communications.

LATER PHASES

Still the Germans kept on. Halted on the east bank, they transferred
their attack to the west, and Hill 304 and Le Mort Homme became famous
the world over. But their advances were slight and their losses were
tremendous. French tactics were now disclosed. It was the purpose of
the French to exact the very heaviest price for each piece of ground
that they defended, but they held their lines with very small
contingents, and, save in the case of a few vital points, surrendered
the positions whenever the cost of holding them was too great.

German high command had seen its larger aims fail. Why did it continue
to assail Verdun after the chance of piercing the French lines had
passed and when the cost was so terrific? The answer is not wholly
clear, but we do know that the concentration of artillery and men had
taken months; these could not quickly be moved elsewhere. Such a
change in plans would mean the loss of several months, which would be
improved by the British and the Russians; it would give France the
"lift" of a great victory.

Conversely it was clear that, while the French lines could not be
pierced, Verdun might be taken and the moral value of the capture
would be enormous in Germany, France, and the neutral world, although
the military value would be just nothing. Again, there remained the
fair chance that the continued pressure upon France would lead the
French to ask the British to attack, and the premature attack would
spoil the allied offensive, obviously preparing.

Against this chance the Germans had massed not less than 800,000
troops along the British front. Meantime they told the world that
Verdun was exhausting France, that it was making an allied offensive
impossible, and they used their slow but considerable advances, which
resulted from the French policy of "selling" their positions at the
maximum of cost to the Germans and minimum of loss to themselves, to
convince the world that they were systematically approaching Verdun
and would take it at the proper moment.

This phase lasted from April 9, 1916, down to the opening of July.
During that time the Germans pushed out from Douaumont and captured
Vaux; they crowded up and over Dead Man's Hill and up the slope of
Hill 304; by July 1, 1916, they had pushed the French right back to
the extre