The monster approached slowly, hobbling, moving from side to side, rocking and pitching, but it came nearer. Nothing obstructed it; a supernatural force seemed to drive it onwards. Some one in the trenches cried "the devil comes," and that word ran down the line like lightning. Suddenly tongues of fire licked out of the armored shine of the iron caterpillar, shells whistled over our heads, and a terrible concert of machine-gun orchestra filled the air. The mysterious creature had surrendered its secret, and sense returned with it, and toughness and defiance, as the English waves of infantry surged up behind the devil's chariot.
Times Special Correspondent, October 24, 1916.
HOUP LA!!
On the Verdun front, after an intense artillery preparation, the projected attack on the right bank of the Meuse was launched at twenty minutes before twelve this morning.
The enemy line, attacked on a front of seven kilometers (nearly four and a half miles), was broken through everywhere to a depth which at the middle attained a distance of three kilometers (nearly two miles).