rushed into the open after me, firing angrily all along the line, and
before the loopholes could be properly manned and the fusillade
returned they were almost up to us. Then, as always happens, they
suddenly became irresolute, and trickled away, and from behind safe
cover they poured in the same long-range rifle-fire....

This, however, is only an incident--one which I provoked. Generally we
are not so enterprising, but are inclined to accept events as they
unroll. But this escapade proved to me that attacks are thrown against
us only after special orders have been issued by the government, and
that the camps of soldiery established round our lines are as much to
imprison us as to slay us. They have bound us in with brickworks, and
they bombard us intermittently with nine or ten guns; but each
bombardment and each attack seems to be conducted quite without any
relation to the general situation.... Fortunately, then, although we
are ill organised and badly commanded as a whole, our units are well
led, and we meet the situation as it actually is on the best plan
possible for the time being. But will this last? Will not something
happen which will fling our enemy against us animated by one desire
--a desire to slay us one and all? It requires now but one rush of the
thousands of armed men encamped about us to sweep our defence off the
face of the earth like so many dried and worthless leaves.

XII

THE GALLANT FRENCH

14th July, 1900.

* * * * *

The post fighting is becoming more desperate, and the French are
steadily losing ground. Is it true that they are losing courage? Of
course, everyone knows that they are a gallant race, and that
although the Germans, by their relentless science and unending
attention to detail, are rated superior in machine-like warfare, they
can never be quite like the brilliant conquerors of Jena, Austerlitz,
and a hundred other battles; and yet no one expected the French were
going to cling to the ruins of their Legation with the bulldog
desperation of which they complained in the English at Waterloo; a
desperation making each house a siege in itself, and only ending with
the total destruction of that house by shells or fire; were going to
treat all idea of retirement with contempt, although their shabby
treatment caused them two weeks ago to temporarily evacuate their
lines in a fit of moroseness.... This is what has happened until now,
for the