fficult problems met with in this war has been the maintenance of
communications during an attack. The telephone is the means most
generally relied upon, but in spite of multiplying the number of
lines, they are all usually put out of commission during the
preliminary bombardment, the wires connecting the citadel with Fort
Douaumont and Fort de Vaux, for example, being repeatedly destroyed.
For this reason several alternative means of communication have always
to be provided, among these being flares and light-balls,
carrier-pigeons, of which the French make considerable use, and
optical signalling apparatus, this last method having been found the
most effective. Sometimes small wireless outfits are used when the
conditions permit. On a few occasions trained dogs have been used to
send back messages, but, the pictures in the illustrated papers to the
contrary, they have not proven a success. In the final resort, the
most ancient method of all--the despatch bearer or runner--has still
very frequently to be employed, making his hazardous trips on a
motor-cycle when he can, on foot when he must.

In the room next to the telephone bureau a dozen clerks were at work
and typewriters were clicking busily; had it not been for the uniforms
one might have taken the place for the office of a large and busy
corporation, as, in a manner of speaking, it was. On another level
were the bakeries which supplied the bread for the troops in the
trenches; enormous storerooms filled with supplies of every
description; an admirably equipped hospital with every cot occupied,
usually by a "shrapnel case"; a flag-trimmed hall used by the officers
as a club-room; and, on the upper levels, mess-halls and
sleeping-quarters for the men. Despite the terrible strain of the
long-continued bombardment, the soldiers seemed surprisingly cheerful,
going about their work in the long, gloomy passages joking and
whistling. They sleep when and where they can: on the bunks in the
fetid air of the casemates; on the steps of the steep staircases that
burrow deep into the ground; or on the concrete floors of the
innumerable galleries. But sleeping is not easy in Verdun.

A short distance to the southwest of Verdun, on the bare face of a
hill, is Fort de la Chaume. Like the other fortifications built to
defend the city, it no longer has any military value save for purposes
of observation. Peering through a narrow slit in one of its armored
_observatoires_, I was