;--name of good omen!--which suggests so happily the
historical importance of the ridge which protects Nancy and covers the
French right. Then, turning westward, one looked over the valley of the
Meurthe, with its various tributaries, the Mortagne in particular, on
which stands Gerbeviller; and away to the Moselle and the Meuse. But the
panoramic view was really made to live and speak for me by the able man
at my side. With French precision and French logic, he began with the
geography of the country, its rivers and hills and plateaux, and its
natural capacities for defence against the German enemy; handling the
view as though it had been a great map, and pointing out, as he went,
the disposition of the French frontier armies, and the use made of this
feature and that by the French generals in command.

This Lorraine Campaign, at the opening of the war, is very little
realised outside France. It lasted some three weeks. It was preceded by
the calamitous French reverse at Morhange, where, on August 20th,
portions of the 15th and 16th Corps of the Second Army, young troops
drawn from south-western France--who in subsequent actions fought with
great bravery--broke in rout before a tremendous German attack. The
defeat almost gave the Germans Nancy. But General Castelnau and General
Foch, between them, retrieved the disaster. They fell back on Nancy and
the line of the Mortagne, while the Germans, advancing farther south,
occupied Luneville (August 22nd) and burnt Gerbeviller. On the 23rd,
24th, and 25th there was fierce fighting on and near this hill on which
we stood. Capitaine de G---- with the 2nd Battalion of Chausseurs, under
General Dubail, had been in the thick of the struggle, and he described
to me the action on the slopes beneath us, and how, through his glasses,
he had watched the enemy on the neighbouring hill forcing parties of
French civilians to bury the German dead and dig German trenches, under
the fire of their own people.

The hill of Leomont, and the many graves upon it, were quiet enough as
we stood talking there. The old farm was in ruins; and in the fields
stretching up the hill there were the remains of trenches. All around
and below us spread the beautiful Lorraine country, with its rivers and
forests; and to the south-east one could just see the blue mass of Mont
Donon, and the first spurs of the Vosges.

"Can you show me exactly where the French line runs?" I asked my
companion. He pointed to a