The soldiers of France have learnt the full range of human suffering,
so that one cannot grudge them their hours of laughter, however
coarse their mirth. There were many armies of men from Ypres to St.
Mihiel who were put to greater tasks of courage than were demanded
of the human soul in mediaeval torture chambers, and they passed
through the ordeal with a heroism which belongs to the splendid
things of history. As yet the history has been written only in brief
bulletins stating facts baldly, as when on a Saturday in March of 1915
it was stated that "In Malancourt Wood, between the Argonne and the
Meuse, the enemy sprayed one of our trenches with burning liquid so
that it had to be abandoned. The occupants were badly burnt." That
official account does not convey in any way the horror which
overwhelmed the witnesses of the new German method of attacking
trenches by drenching them with inflammatory liquid. A more detailed
narrative of this first attack by liquid fire was given by one of the
soldiers;
"It was yesterday evening, just as night fell, that it happened. The day
had been fairly calm, with the usual quantity of bursting shells
overhead, and nothing forewarned us of a German attack.
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