of
the Grand Couronne of Nancy, more than 30,000 howitzer shells were fired
in two days. The fights among the infantry were characterized on the
entire front by an alternation of failure and success, every point being
taken, lost and retaken at intervals.

The struggle attained to especial violence in the Champenoux Forest. On
September 5, 1914, the enemy won Maixe and Remereville, which they lost
again in the evening, but they were unable to dislodge the French from
the ridge east of the forest of Champenoux. The Mont d'Amance was
violently bombarded; a German brigade marched on Pont-a-Mousson. The
French retook Crevic and the Crevic Wood.

On the 7th the Germans directed on Ste. Genevieve, north of the Grand
Couronne, a very violent attack, which miscarried. Ste. Genevieve was
lost for a time, but it was retaken on the 8th; more than 2,000 Germans
lay dead on the ground. The same day the enemy threw themselves
furiously on the east front, the Mont d'Amance, and La Neuvelotte. South
of the Champenoux Forest the French were compelled to retire; they were
thrown back on the ridge west of the forest. On the 9th a new
bombardment of Mont d'Amance, a struggle of extreme violence, took place
on the ridge west of the forest of Champenoux, the French gaining
ground. General Castelnau decided to take the direct offensive, the
Germans giving signs of great fatigue. On the 12th they retired very
rapidly. They evacuated Luneville, a frontier town, where they left a
great quantity of arms and ammunition. The French began immediately to
pursue them, the Germans withdrawing everywhere over the frontier.

CHAPTER VII

SIEGE AND FALL OF NAMUR

When the Germans occupied Brussels on August 20, 1914, we observed that
corps after corps did not enter the city, but swept to the south. This
was Von Kluck's left wing moving to attack the Allies on the Sambre-Mons
front. The forces which passed through Brussels were Von Kluck's
center, advancing south by east to fall in line beside the right wing,
which had mainly passed between Brussels and Antwerp to the capture of
Bruges and Ghent. The whole line when re-formed on the French frontier
would stretch from Mons to the English Channel--the great right wing of
the German armies.

Meanwhile, Von Buelow's second army had advanced up the valley of the
Meuse, with its right sweeping the Hisbaye uplands. Some part of this
army may have been transported by rail from Montmedy. Its general