"The fortifications of Paris are by no means the feeble things they were in 1870. From the Eiffel Tower we can control the movements in co-operation with our armies in the provinces of France.
"The situation is in no way desperate, although the Germans have invaded France. France will fight on and on until this attempt to establish tyranny in Europe is overthrown."
[Photograph: Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y. Eiffel Tower's searchlight, to reveal bomb-throwing air craft and air-scouts of the Germans.]
Monday, August 31.
Twenty-ninth day of the war. Hot, somewhat hazy, summer weather, with faint northerly wind. Thermometer at five P.M. 27 degrees centigrade.
Kaiser William, who it appears was on the field during the battle of Charleroi, is pressing forward in hot haste, regardless of consequences, on the road to Paris, close behind the steel-tipped élite of his vast armies, consisting of the Royal Prussian Guard Corps and the famous Third Army Corps. To-morrow will be the anniversary of the Battle of Sedan. The "Mailed Fist" is doing his best to celebrate it by leading his legions to Paris. It is daredevil desperation that spurs him on, for nowhere, as yet, have the Franco-British armies been broken through, and they continue to present successive stone walls to the Teuton invasion, and oppose every inch of ground with dogged tenacity. The allied left wing has been forced—always by the traditional enveloping tactics on their right—to retreat, but they do so sullenly and in good order, making the Germans pay dearly for every step gained. The battle is raging continuously, and much depends upon which side first receives strong reënforcements to fill up the gaps made by tremendous losses. The Russian advance in East Prussia, according to accounts from Brussels, has already forced the Germans to send back to Berlin from their center at least one army corps.
There is hurry and skurry all day long among Parisians and foreign residents to get away from Paris to more peaceful towns in the south and west. The railway stations are so crowded that it is almost impossible, at the Gare of Saint-Lazare or at the Quai d'Orsay to get anywhere near the booking office. Motor-cabs are being hired at extravagant prices to convey families to Tours, Orléans, Le Mans, or Bordeaux. The bearing of the public however by no means resembles that of "nerves," and less still a panic.
[Illustration: Copyright by International News Service. Wounded French soldiers returning to Paris with trophies from the battlefields.]
I lunched to-day with Mr. Hulme Beaman, correspondent of the London Standard, and his charming wife, who live just across the way from me, in the Boulevard de Courcelles. Mr. Beaman passed Sunday at Poissy, where he usually goes fishing for gudgeon. At Achères, the junction of the lines from Picardy and Belgium, he saw train after train filled with wounded French soldiers, who seemed in good spirits and who, in spite of their suffering, were burning to get back again to the front.
Another German air-lieutenant made a flight over Paris this afternoon and dropped two bombs near the Notre Dame Cathedral, but caused no damage; one of the projectiles fell into the Seine. The airman also tossed into Paris a German flag, to which was tied a postal card calling upon Paris to surrender. Groups watched the aeroplane, which never came lower than fifteen hundred meters, and women and children seemed rather amused at the sight.