A Visit to Three Fronts

There is a couplet of Stevenson's which haunts me, 'There fell a war in / a woody place -- in a land beyond the sea. ' I have just come back from / spending three wonderful dream days in that woody place. It lies with / the open, bosky country of Verdun on its immediate right, and the chalk / downs of Champagne upon its left. If one could imagine the lines being / taken right through our New Forest or the American Adirondacks it would / give some idea of the terrain, save that it is a very undulating / country of abrupt hills and dales. It is this peculiarity which has / made the war on this front different to any other, more picturesque and / more secret. In front the fighting lines are half in the clay soil, / half behind the shelter of fallen trunks. Between the two the main bulk / of the soldiers live like animals of the woodlands, burrowing on the / hillsides and among the roots of the trees. It is a war by itself, and / a very wonderful one to see. At three different points I have visited / the front in this broad region, wandering from the lines of one army / corps to that of another. In all three I found the same conditions, and / in all three I found also the same pleasing fact which I had discovered / at Soissons, that the fire of the French was at least five, and very / often ten shots to one of the Boche. It used not to be so. The Germans / used to scrupulously return shot for shot. But whether they have moved / their guns to the neighbouring Verdun, or whether, as is more likely, / all the munitions are going there, it is certain that they were very / outclassed upon the three days (June 10, 11, 12) which I allude to. / There were signs that for some reason their spirits were at a low ebb.

On the evening before our arrival the French had massed all their bands / at the front, and, in honour of the Russian victory, had played the / Marseillaise and the Russian National hymn, winding up with general / shoutings and objurgations calculated to annoy. Failing to stir up the / Boche, they had ended by a salute from a hundred shotted guns. After / trailing their coats up and down the line they had finally to give up / the attempt to draw the enemy. Want of food may possibly have caused a / decline in the German spirit. There is some reason to believe that they / feed up their fighting men at the places like Verdun or Hooge, where / they need all their energy, at the expense of the men who are on the / defensive. If so, we may find it out when we attack. The French / officers assured me that the prisoners and deserters made bitter / complaints of their scale of rations. And yet it is hard to believe / that the fine efforts of our enemy at Verdun are the work of / half-starved men.