Fields of Victory

ousness shows itself most sensitive and most profound, just as the war consciousness of Great Br

ed flats north and south of the Menin road could never be to a Lancashire or London boy. And no other French battle-field wears for a Frenchman quite the same aureole that shines for ever on those dark, riven hills of Verdun. But it seemed to me that in the feeling of France, Champagne came nex

till awaited the Americans last November, had the Allies' campaign not ended when it did. There was a bright sun on all the wide and lovely landscape, on the shining rivers, the flooded spaces and the old towns, and magnificent clouds lay piled above the purple Vosges, to the south and east. We caught up a French division on the march, with long lines of lorries, artillery wagons, guns and field-kitchens, and as our car got tangled up with it in passing throug

fficial P

crossed the St. Quentin Canal, which is part of the Hindenburg Line, by swimming in life-belts. They gained their objectives

s, and there are now at a rough estimate about 300,000, of whom nearly 100,000 are to be found in Metz and Strasbourg. The whole administration of the two provinces, with very few exceptions, was a German administration, imported from Germany, and up to the outbreak of war, the universities and the schools-i.e., the whole teaching profession-were German, and many of the higher clergy. The leading finance of the provinces was German. And so on. But I cannot see any reason to doubt that the real feeling of the native population in the two provinces, whether in town or country, ha

lles, was well known to me, and I had heard much of his attractive and romantic personality. So, on arriving at our hotel after a long day's motoring, and after consulting with the kind French Lieutenant who was our escort, I ventured a little note to the famous General. I said I had been the guest of the British Army for six days

Was there ever a more lovely winter evening? A rosy sunset seemed to have descended into the very streets and squares of the beautiful old town. Wisps of pink cloud were tangled in the narrow streets, against a background of intensely blue sky. The high-roofe

a wound at the Dardanelles-invites us to dinner with him and his staff forthwith-the motor will return for us. So, joyously, we made what simple change we could, and in another hour or so we

beard, brown and silky, dark hair, and a pair of clear blue eyes, shrewd, indeed, and penetrating, but singularly winning. A soldier, a most modern soldier, yet with an infusion of something romantic, a touch of thoughtful or m

the Marne victory, and was at once given the command of a division in the Argonne. He spent the first winter of the war in that minute study of the ground, and that friendly and inspiring intercourse with his soldiers, which have been two of the marked traits of his career, and when early in 1915 he was transferred to Champagne, as Commander of a Corps d'Armée, he had time, before he was called away, to make a survey of the battle-field east of Rheims, which was of great value to him later when he came to command the Fourth French Army in the same district. But meanwhile came the summons to the Dardanelles, where, as we all remember, he served with the utmost loyalty and good will under General Sir Ian Hamilton. He replaced General d'Amade on the 10th of May, le

who went to meet him at the station on his arrival at Paris, and had been till then unaware of the extent of the General's wounds, could not conceal his emotion at seeing him. "Eh, c'est le sort des batailles," said Gouraud gaily, to his pale and stumbling friend. "One would have said he was two men in one," said another old comrade-"one was betrayed to me by his works; the other spoke to me in his words." The legends of him in hospital are

emained through the whole of 1916. That was the year of Verdun and the Somme. Neither the Allies nor the enemy had men or energy to spare for important action in Champagne that year; but Gouraud's watch was never surprised, and again he was able to acquaint himself with every military feature, and every local peculiarity of the desolate chalk-hills where France has buried so man

ch, finding nothing left in the fine old house, even of the mobilier which had been left there in 1871, discovered a chateau belonging to the Kaiser close by, and requisitioned from it some of the necessaries of life. Bordeaux drunk out of a glass marked with the Kaiser's monogram had a taste of its own. In the same wa

as another French military critic calls it, affecting the glorious French Army, which followed on General Nivelle's campaign on the Aisne-March and April, 1917-with its high hopes of victory, its initial success, its appalling losses, and its ultimate check. Many causes combined, however-among them the leave-system in the French Army, and many grievances as to food, billeting, and the like: and the discontent was alarming and widespread. But," said General Gouraud, "Pétain stepped in and saved the situation." "How?" one asked. "Il s'occupa du so

ble to sit still indoors, went out and mingled with the crowd in the streets of that great military centre, apparently to the astonishment and pleasure of the multitude. "Everywhere along the l

or one can rarely talk with French officers about General Gouraud without coming across the statement: "He is beloved b

the scene in 1916 and 1917 of so much desperate fighting, was meant to carry the German line down to the Marne that same day. Gouraud was amply informed by his intelligence staff, and his air service, of the enemy preparations, and had made all his own. The only question was as to the exact day and hour of the attack. Then by a stroke of good fortune, at eight o'clock on the very evening preceding the attack, twenty-seven prisoners were brought in-of whom some are said to have been Alsatian-and closely questioned by the Staff. "They told us," said Gouraud, "that the artillery attack would begin at ten minutes past midnight, and the infantry attack between three and four o'clock that very night. I thereupo

ything happened, for once, really "according to plan." The advance posts, whose order was "to sacrifice themselves," and each member of which knew perfectly well the duty laid upon him, held out-some of them-all day, and eventually fought their way back to the French lines. But on the prepared line of resistance the German attack was hopelessly broken, and men and reserves

he greatest strategical importance. Thus secured on his right, Foch at once transferred troops from the Fourth Army, in support of General Mangin's counter-attack of the 18th, to

d see two things-the great cemetery at Chalons, and the little 'Cimetière du Mont Muret.'" He described to me the latter, lying up in what was the main fighting line, and how they had gathered there many of the "unidentifiables"-the nameless, shattered heroes of a terrible battle-field, so that they rest in the very ground where they gave their lives. He might have told me,-but there was never a w

to the east of Rheims, which since the beginning of the war had barred the French way. In a battle of sixteen days, the French captured the whole of the fortified zone on this portion of the front, took 21,000 prisoners, 600 cannon and 3,500 machine guns. At the ver

July 16th and the Armistice, the British took 188,700 p