owing that air raids were of
frequent occurrence, and so, through steadily increasing traffic, to
Souilly, the obscure hamlet from which was directed the defense of
Verdun. In the centre of the cobble-paved Grande Place stood the
Mairie, a two-story building in the uncompromising style
characteristic of most French provincial architecture. At the foot of
the steps stood two sentries in mud-caked uniforms and dented helmets,
and through the front door flowed an endless stream of staff-officers,
orderlies, messengers, and mud-spattered despatch riders. In this
village _mairie_, a score of miles behind the firing-line, were
centred the nerve and vascular systems of an army of half a million
men; here was planned and directed the greatest battle of all time. On
the upper floor, in a large, light, scantily furnished room, a man
with a great silver star on the breast of his light-blue tunic sat at
a table, bent over a map. He had rather sparse gray hair and a gray
mustache and a little tuft of gray below the lower lip. His eyes were
sunken and tired-looking, as though from lack of sleep, and his face
and forehead were deeply lined, but he gave the impression,
nevertheless, of possessing immense vitality and energy. He was a
broad-shouldered, solidly built, four-square sort of man, with cool,
level eyes, and a quiet, almost taciturn manner. It was General Robert
Nivelle, the man who held Verdun for France. He it was who, when the
fortress was quivering beneath the Germans' sledge-hammer blows, had
quietly remarked: "They shall not pass!" _And they did not._

I did not remain long with General Nivelle; to have taken much of such
a man's time would have been a rank impertinence. I would go to
Verdun? he inquired. Yes, with his permission, I answered. Everything
had been arranged, he assured me. An officer who knew America
well--Commandant Bunau-Varilla, of Panama Canal fame--had been
assigned to go with me.[E] As I was leaving I attempted to express to
him the admiration which I felt for the fashion in which he had
conducted the Great Defense. But with a gesture he waved the
compliment aside. "It is the men out there in the trenches who should
be thanked," he said. "They are the ones who are holding Verdun." I
took away with me the impression of a man as stanch, as confident, as
unconquerable as the city he had so heroically defended. A few weeks
later he was to succeed Marshal Joffre to the highest field command in
the gift of