They were very proud, those French soldiers, of fighting side by side
with their old foes the British, now after long centuries of strife, from
Edward the Black Prince to Wellington, their brothers-in-arms upon
the battlefields; and because I am English they offered me their
cigarettes and made me one of them.
In modern war it is only masses of men that matter, moved by a
common obedience at the dictation of mysterious far-off powers, and
I thanked Heaven that masses of men were on the move, rapidly, in
vast numbers, and in the right direction--to support the French lines
which had fallen back from Amiens a few hours before I left that town,
whom I had followed in their retirement back and back, with the British
always strengthening their left, but retiring with them almost to the
outskirts of Paris itself.
Only this could save Paris--the rapid strengthening of the Allied front
by enormous reserves strong enough to hold back the arrow-shaped
battering-ram of the enemy's right.
All our British reserves had been rushed up to the front from Havre
and Rouen. There was only one deduction to be drawn from this
great swift movement. The French and British lines had been
supported by every available battalion to save Paris from its menace
of destruction, to meet the weight of the enemy's metal by a force
strong enough to resist its mass.
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