CHAPTER XX.
MORE STORIES OF THE RETREAT.
The stories which you have read in these pages have been told by British soldiers. I am sure you would now like to read some French stories of various incidents which occurred during the retreat. The following story relates how a French cavalryman received the surrender of three hundred Germans.
One fine morning in August, during a sharp engagement in a small village of Alsace, a French hussar was captured by the enemy. The Germans, who numbered three hundred, were then holding the village. Shortly afterwards French artillery began to shell the place, and it was evident that an infantry attack would soon follow.
When the French infantry were seen advancing, the German officer sought advice from the captured hussar. "If you resist," said the Frenchman, "your whole command will be shot down." To this the German replied, "We are willing to surrender, but we are afraid that your people will put us to death." The hussar gave his word of honour that no such fate would overtake them, and assured them that in France the rules of civilized warfare were always observed. "You need fear nothing," concluded the hussar; "you will be well treated by my countrymen."
A sigh of relief escaped from the lips of the officer, and he said, "Such being the case, we will surrender." At once the hussar placed himself at the head of the column, gave the order to march, and with three hundred Germans at his heels led the way to the French lines, where he handed over his prisoners.
Here is a story in praise of German courage. It is told by a British artilleryman. "The grandest thing I saw out there," he says, "was the fight of a handful of Germans. These chaps were the last of a regiment to cross a stream under a fiendish rifle and artillery fire.
"They were hotly pursued by French cavalry and infantry, and when they saw that it was all up with them, the remnant made for a little hill and gathered round the regimental flag, to fight to the last. The French closed round them, and called on them to surrender; but not they! They stood there, back to back, until the last man went down with the flag in his grasp and a dozen bullet wounds in his body.