Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1916-05-07
HOW FRENCH AND GERMANS
ARE STRUGGLING AT VERDUN
Frank H. Simonds Writes of Greatest and
Most Prolonged Battle in the
Worlds History.

the thing will suddenly grip your
throat and your heart; it will take hold
of you as nothing in your life has ever
done or ever will" And I know that
never shall forget those lines of quiet,
patient, middle aged men. marching to
the sound of the guns; leaving at their
backs the countless graves that hold
the youth OF France-the men who had
known the Marine, the User Cham
payne; who had known death for near
~ two years. night and day, almost
constantly. Yet. during the fifteen min
utes L watched there was not one order,
not one straggler; there was a sense of
the regularity with which the blood
flows through the human arteries in
France.
So many people have asked mel
lad asked myself-the Question before
L went to France: Are thew not weary
OF 1t? Will the French not give UP
from sheer exhaustion of strength" 1
40 not mink SO, now that 1 have seen
,ney marched to the trenches beyond
Verdun. France may bleed to death,
out do not think that while there are
men there will be an end of the sacri-
nee nee. NO pen or voice can express the
horror that these men, that ali French
men, have Of this war, of all war-the
WEAKNESS. They hate it; you cannot
mistake this. But France marches to
the frontier in the spirit that men
manned the walls against the bar
parlans in the other days; there is no
other way; it must be.
For France and Civilization.
over and over again there has come
the invariable answer: it would have
come from scores and hundreds of these
men who passed so near me I could
nave touched their faded uniforms if
mad asked-"1t is for France, for civ
| illzation: 1T must be, for there is no
other way; we shall die but with us
with our sacrifice, perhaps this thing
Will end You cannot put it in words
quite, do not think even any French
man mas quite said it. but you can see
| 1t, you can feel it, you can understand
IT, Wnen you see regiment. brigade,
DIVISION OF these men Of thirty, some
perhaps or forty. going forward to the
war they hate and will never quit un-
III that which they love is safe or they
and all of their race are swallowed. up
! in the storm that now was audibly
beating beyond the human walls on the
! nearby hillside.
Presently we moved again, we slipped
cline. shot under the crumbline gate of
the Nerdun fortress, and as we entered
a shell burst just behind us and the
roar drowned out all else in its sudden
ana paralyzlng rash. 1t had fallen. so
we learned little later, Just where we
had been watching the passing troops:
| II mad fallen among them and killed.
| But an hour or two later when we
repassed the point where it. fell, men
were still marching by. Other repi-
| ments of men were still marching IN
the sound of the guns, and those who
had passed were already over the hills
and beyond the river. fling into the
| trenches in time, so it turned ont. To
hof L
the later afternoon
Story Is One of Men,
went to Verdun to see the forts III.
city, the hills and the topography of a
great battle: / went in the hope of de-
scriplng with little of clarity what
the operation meant as a military af
fair. I saw. and l shall hereafter try
to describe this. But I shall never be
| able to describe this thing which was
the true Verdun for me-these men
their faces, seen as one heard the shell
| hre and the musketry rolling not
steadily but intermittently, the men
who had marched over the roads that
are hneo win graves. through villages
that are destroyed, that had come of
their own will and in calm determine
ton and marched unhurryingIy and vet
overwhelmingly, the men who were no
longer young. who had left behind
mem all that men hold dear in life,
nome, wives, children, because they
knew that there was no other way.
can only say to all those who have
| asked me, What of France?" this sim
pie thing. that l do not believe the
french VIII ever stop. l do not believe
as the Germans have said. that French
courage is weakening. that French de-
termination is abating / do NOT he
lieve the kaiser himself would think
this II he had seen these mems faces
| as they marched toward his guns 7
think he would feel as felt as one
must feel. that these men went will.
lngly, hating war with their whole
soul, destitute of passion or anger. I
never neard a passionate word in
| their minds into the mind and heart ~
a whole race, the belief that wba +
was at stake was the thing that for
1000 years of history has been France
Second Installment-Part 1,
Inc citadel or Verdun, the bulwark of
the eastern frontier in ancient DAYS.
| rises out of the meadows of the Meuse
with something of the abruptness of
the skyscraper and still preserves that
aspect which led the writer's of other
wars to describe all forts as "frowu-
ing. 1t was built for Louis XIV by
Vauban. He took a solid rock and
blasted out redoubts and battlements.
The generations that followed him dug
into the living rock and created within
it whole city of catacombs a vast
labyrinth of passages and chambers
and halls: even an elevator was added
by the latest engineers, so that one can
go from floor to floor. from the level of
the meadow to the level of the summit
of the rock, possibly a hundred feet
above.