A HERO LEADING HEROES
“‘The men are tired,’ this indomitable soldier replied, ‘but they are ready and glad to go again to the trenches.’ And so once more, a hero leading heroes, the general marched back the men of the second brigade, reduced to a quarter of its original strength, to the apex of the line as it existed at that moment.
“This position he held all day Monday. On Tuesday he was still occupying reserve trenches, and on Wednesday was relieved and retired to billets in the rear.
“Such, in the most general outline, is the story of a great and glorious feat of arms. A story told so soon after the event, while tendering bare justice to units whose doings fell under the eyes of particular observers, must do less than justice to others who played their part—and all did—as gloriously as those whose special activities it is possible, even at this stage, to describe. But the friends of men who fought in other battalions may be content in the knowledge that they, too, shall learn, when time allows, the exact part which each unit played in these unforgettable days.”
CHAPTER XVIII
PITIFUL FLIGHT OF A MILLION WOMEN
By Philip Gibbs
Of the London Daily Chronicle
[THE GERMAN ADVANCE UPON PARIS] — [THE PRIZE OF PARIS] — [HEROIC EFFORTS OF FRENCH SOLDIERS] — [GERMANS BALKED OF THEIR PRIZE] — [SIXTY MILES OF FUGITIVES] — [TERROR IN EYES] — [PARIS THE BEAUTIFUL].
[The following article is reproduced by the courtesy of the New York Times.]
At least a million German soldiers—that is no exaggeration of a light pen, but the sober and actual truth—were advancing steadily upon the capital of France. They were close to Beauvais when I escaped from what was then a death-trap. They were fighting our British troops at Creil when I came to that town. Upon the following days they were holding our men in the Forest of Compiègne. They had been as near to Paris as Senlis, almost within gunshot of the outer forts.
“Nothing seems to stop them,” said many soldiers with whom I spoke. “We kill them and kill them, but they come on.”
The situation seemed to me almost ready for the supreme tragedy—the capture or destruction of Paris. The northwest of France lay very open to the enemy, abandoned as far south as Abbéville and Amiens, too lightly held by a mixed army corps of French and Algerian troops with their headquarters at Aumale.
Here was an easy way to Paris.
Always obsessed with the idea that the Germans must come from the east, the almost fatal error of this war, the French had girdled Paris with almost impenetrable forts on the east side, from those of Ecouen and Montmorency, by the far-flung forts of Chelles and Champigny, to those of Susy and Villeneuve, on the outer lines of the triple cordon; but on the west side, between Pontoise and Versailles, the defenses of Paris were weak. I say, “were,” because during the last days thousands of men were digging trenches and throwing up ramparts. Only the snakelike Seine, twining into a Pégoud loop, forms a natural defense to the western approach to the city, none too secure against men who have crossed many rivers in their desperate assaults.