And with my own eyes I saw the unforgettable drama of the
French army in retreat, blowing up bridges on its way, shifting to new
lines of defence, awaiting with its guns ready for a new stage of the
enemy's advance.
Out of a wild confusion of impressions, the tumult of these scenes,
the inevitable contradictions and inconsistencies and imaginings of
men and women drunk with the excitement of this time, I sorted out
some clear threads of fact and with the aid of the Strategist, who
spread out his maps on wayside banks, blotting out the wild flowers,
or on the marble-topped tables outside fly-blown estaminets in village
streets, tracked out the line of the German advance and saw the peril
of the French.
From one of my dispatches I transcribe a narrative which records one
of the most bloody battles in the first phase of the war. Written to the
jolt of a troop train, in which wounded men hugged their bandaged
hands, it tells how five thousand Frenchmen did their best to check a
German army corps.
4
August 29
It was nearly a fortnight ago that the Germans concentrated their
heaviest forces upon Namur, and began to press southwards and
over the Meuse Valley. After the battle of Dinant the French army,
among whom, at this point, were the 2nd and the 7th Corps, were
heavily outnumbered at the time, and had to fall back gradually in
order to gain time for reinforcements to come up to their support.
Pages:
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123