Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-08-13
VaLOr of POiLuS
SaUes Plateau
Continued from rage One

Continued from rage One
courage devotion and supreme fighting
quality spells poilu. StirI1d to the heart as
I am In this moment of writing feeling the
enforced injustice done II in hasty record
ing. I am, as IL urged by something ir-
resistible within me, compelled to stop
pounding these keys for minute. rise. and
facing the fight still going on within my
hearing, salute these Frenchmen In blue,
who at Craonne and Easements and Califor-
mia maintain the proud slogan, They shall
not pass"
For eleven times this month now twenty
two days old the Germans have thrown
great masses OF fresh troops against the
& coveted plateau west of Craonne and nine
times have they been completely repulsed.
Today they stand just where they were
twenty-five days ago with naught to show
y for their efforts but thousands and thou
y sands of German dead. They do not hold
q foot of trench they did not hold July /.
s They did succeed in taking trench or
piece of trench here and there. but they
have been compelled to reinquish it COM
pletely before they could make themselves
among such hell of fire and gas and fame
and death that surrounded them.
CROWN PRINCE PAYS PRICE
The Crown Prince has endeavored TO buy
with thousands of human lives two liilo-
meters Of France and this in the third year
of the war. He has seemingly been willing
TO pay forty times the military value in
men and material for these two kilometers.
His attacks are feeby classified when
spoken of as desperate l am told that
even at Nerdun they We're not more violent
than during these last three days and that
never In the history of the war have SO
many OF the enemy been ruthlessly
slaughtered for but few feet of material
ground or that which might be maintained
as a moral gain
French losses have been important, but
not marker to those of the Boche And
may my arm wither II ever write again
that the polu Is tired. unable to stand
the gaff that he stood in February, May
on June. 1916. at Nerdun, that he has stood
all through this war. If anybody ever tells
you much just lean over and whisper,
"Craonne." For these soldiers of France
are marvellous. They are more than mar
velous. No other soldier in all the worlds
wars have done that which the poilu has
4 done for three years, and then. that which
II was my privilege to see him do today
and yesterday. If there were a million
more OF him, he'd trim these Boches without
the United States or England Russia
or any other combination OF nations on the
globe. He has borne the bruut as no other
fighting man could. He has stood an
impregnable buiwark in guardianship of
world honor, even when the world did not
know its honor was at stake. And he'll be
there at the finish, full Of fight STILL as full
x of It as an egg of meat, and as modest as
sver.
For two full days and nights I have
had my ears stuffed with cotton, and yet
heard the continuous violent thunder of
shell. For two full days and nights I
! have seen black shell flight IN the sunlight.
and red shell flight under the stars, and
IL II had been possible to forget that the
attack was limited in area, II would have
been easy TO imagine sight of the greatest
battle of all time "a tremendous inten-
sity of enemy fire." laconically reads the
communique of July 81. And IT sure was,
with some more,
CLoUDBURST OF DEATH
] have an impression OF something new,
: yet built out of the old. had looked upon
rain Of shell ere this; indeed. a veritable
8 avalanche that approached cloudburst of
Z iron and lead and steel, But this which |
have just witnessed, and am about to re-
( witness, as soon as ] can write and send
or this article by courier to Paris, was a
hundred cloudbursts i'm one. the one a
cb5udburst OF death. 1t seemed as If a
new force, an unknown force, II you will,
had superseded all the combined visible
and invisible forces in nature; that 1t was
. an INFINITE and incalculable combination of
IRE, of noise, of smoke. OF geysers. that the
world was no longer a world even of war
that I have looked upon this past year. sbut
4 something unheard Of which I could not
classify. could not in any precedent of read
ing or observing or study or experience
+ hnd In any semblance of simili: that even
men had changed into living things could
no longer recognize. 1eg
The only familiar things about me were
the sky's blue and the suns yellow. As for
noise OF shell, nothing could describe II.
one might compare it's shrek and song to
4 thousand infernos the color. even by day,
tMn cf n million lurid furnaces with onan