and American Soldiers of the Army._

"We may be attacked from one moment to another. You all feel that a
defensive battle was never engaged in under more favourable
conditions. We are warned, and we are on our guard. We have
received strong reinforcements of infantry and artillery. You will
fight on ground, which, by your assiduous labour, you have
transformed into a formidable fortress, into a fortress which is
invincible if the passages are well guarded.

"The bombardment will be terrible. You will endure it without
weakness. The attack in a cloud of dust and gas will be fierce but
your positions and your armament are formidable.

"The strong and brave hearts of free men beat in your breast. None
will look behind, none will give way. Every man will have but one
thought--'Kill them, kill them in abundance, until they have had
enough.' And therefore your General tells you it will be a glorious
day."

And so the line held, although the French General had in preparation the
plans for withdrawal. When, at the end of the third day, the American
line still occupied the same position, the French General found that his
labour in preparing the plans for withdrawal had been for nothing. He is
reported to have thrown his hands up in the air and remarked, "There
doesn't seem to be anything to do but to let the war be fought out where
the New York Irish and the Alabamans want to fight it."

There was one humorous incident worthy of record in that fighting. Great
rivalry existed between the New York regiment and the Alabama regiment,
both of which happened to be units of the same brigade. Both the New
Yorkers and the Alabamans had a mutual hatred for the German but, in
addition to that, each of them was possessed with a mutual dislike for
the other. There had been frequent clashes of a more or less
sportsmanlike and fistic nature between men from both of the regiments.

On the second day of the fighting, the Germans had sent over low-flying
airplanes which skimmed the tops of our trenches and sprayed them with
machine gun fire. A man from Alabama, who had grown up from childhood
with a squirrel rifle under his arm, accomplished something that had
never been done before in the war. From his position in a trench, he
took careful aim with his rifle and brought down one of the German
planes. It was the first time in the history of the Western Front that a
rifleman on the ground had done this.

When