We are living these days in the atmosphere of the great battle of
Verdun. We talk Verdun all day, dream Verdun all night--in fact, the
thought of that great attack in the east absorbs every other idea. Not
in the days of the Marne, nor in the trying days of Ypres or the Aisne
was the tension so terrible as it is now. No one believes that Verdun
can be taken, but the anxiety is dreadful, and the idea of what the
defence is costing is never absent from the minds even of those who
are firmly convinced of what the end must be.
I am sending you a Forain cartoon from the Figaro, which exactly
expresses the feeling of the army and the nation.
You have only to look on a map to know how important the position is
at Verdun, the supposed-to-be-strongest of the four great fortresses--
Verdun, Toul, Epinay, and Belfort--which protect the only frontier by
which the Kaiser has a military right to try to enter France, and which
he avoided on account of its strength.
Verdun itself is only one day's march from Metz. If you study it up on
a map you will learn that, within a circuit of thirty miles, Verdun is
protected by thirty-six redoubts. But what you will not learn is that this
great fortification is not yet connected with its outer redoubts by the
subterranean passages which were a part of the original scheme. It is
that fact which is disturbing. Every engineer in the French army
knows that the citadel at Metz has underground communications with
all its circle of outer ramparts. Probably every German engineer
knows that Verdun's communication passages were never made.
Isn't it strange (when we remember that, even in the days of walled
cities, there were always subterraneans leading out of the fortified
towns beyond the walls--wonderful works of masonry, intact today,
like those of Provins, and even here on this hill) that a nation which
did not want war should have left unfinished the protection of such a
costly fortress?
You probably knew, as usual, before we did, that the battle had
begun. We knew nothing of it here until February 23, three days after
the bombardment began, with the French outer lines nine miles
outside the city, although only twenty-four hours after was the full
force of the German artillery let loose, with fourteen German divisions
waiting to march against the three French divisions holding the
position. Can you wonder we are anxious?
We have been buoyed up for weeks by the hope of an Allied
offensive--and instead came this!
The first day's news was bad, so was that of the 24th. I have never
since the war began felt such a vibrant spirit of anxiety about me. To
add to it, just before midnight on the 24th snow began to fall. In the
morning there was more snow on the ground than I had ever seen in
France. It was a foot deep in front of the house, and on the north
side, where it had drifted, it was twice that depth. This was so unusual
that no one seemed to know what to do. Amélie could not get to me.
No one is furnished with foot-gear to walk in snow, except men who
happen to have high galoshes. I looked out of the window, and saw
Père shovelling away to make a path to the gate, but with an iron
shovel it was a long passage. It was nine o'clock before he got the
gate open, and then Amélie came slipping down. Père was busy all
day keeping that path open, for the snow continued to fall.
This meant that communications were all stopped. Trains ran slowly
on the main lines, but our little road was blocked. It continued to snow
for two days, and for two days we had no news from the outside
world.
On the morning of the 27th one of our old men went to the Demi-
Lune and watched for a military car coming in from Meaux. After
hours of waiting, one finally appeared. He ran into the road and hailed
it, and as the chauffeur put on his brakes, he called:
"Et Verdun?"
"Elle tient," was the reply, and the auto rushed on.
That was all the news we had in those days.
When communications were opened the news we got was not
consoling. First phase of the battle closed six days ago--with the
Germans in Douaumont, and the fighting still going on--but the spirit
of the French not a jot changed. Here, among the civilians, they say:
"Verdun will never fall," and out at the front, they tell us that the
poilus simply hiss through their clenched teeth, as they fight and fall,
"They shall not pass." And all the time we sit inactive on the hilltop
holding that thought. It's all we can do.
We were livened up a bit last week because the village clown was on
his home leave. He is a lad of twenty-three with a young wife and a
little three-year-old girl, who has learned to talk since "dada" saw her,
and is her father right over--full of fun, good-humor, and laughter.
I have told you that we almost never hear war talk. We did hear some
while our local clown was home, but how much was true and how
much his imagination I don't know. Anyway, his drollery made us all
laugh. His mother-in-law had died since he left, and when his wife
wept on his shoulder, he patted her on the back, and winked over his
shoulder at his admiring friends, as he said: "Chut, ma fille, if you are
going to cry in these days because someone dies, you'll have no time
to sleep. Only think of it, the old lady died in bed, and that is
everything which is most aristocratic in these days."