onne. In the south-western distance
I could just descry the Monts de Champagne, while turning to the north
one faced the slopes of Notre Dame des Champs, and recalled the
statement of General Gouraud that on that comparatively open ground
the fiercest fighting of last October had taken place.

And now, not a soul, not a movement! Everywhere lay piles of unused
shell, German and French, small heaps of hand-grenades and bundles of
barbed wire. The camouflaged battery positions, the deep dug-outs and
strong posts of the enemy were all about us; a dead horse lay not far
away; and in front, the white crosses of the graveyard. A grim scene,
under the January sky! But in the very middle of the little cemetery
some tender hand had just recently fastened a large bunch of white
narcissus to one of the crosses. We had passed no one that I could
remember on the long ascent; yet the flowers were quite fresh and the
thought of them--the only living and beautiful thing for miles in that
scarred wilderness, over which a creeping fog was beginning to
gather--stayed with me for days.

The Champagne-battle-field is indeed deeply interwoven with the whole
history of the war. The flower of the French Army and almost all the
leading French Generals--Castelnau, Petain, Nivelle, Gouraud, have
passed through its furnace. But famous as it is, and for ever
associated with the remarkable and fascinating personality of General
Gouraud, which gives to it a _panache_ of its own, it has not the
sacredness of Verdun.

We had spent the day before the expedition to Champagne at St. Mihiel
and Verdun. To St. Mihiel I will return in my next chapter. Verdun I
had never seen, and the impression that it makes, even in a few hours,
is profound. In March, 1916, I well remember at Havre, at Boulogne, at
St. Omer, how intent and absorbed a watch was kept along our front
over the news from Verdun. It came in hourly, and the officers in the
hotels, French and English, passed it to each other without much
speech, with a shrug, or a look of anxiety, or a smile, as the case
might be. When we arrived on March 6th at the Visitors' Chateau at
G.H.Q.--then, of course, at St. Omer--our first question was:
"Verdun?" "All right," was the quick reply. "We have offered help, but
they have refused it."

No--France, heroic France, trod that wine-press alone; she beat back
her cruel foe alone; and, at Verdun, she triumphed alone. Never,
indeed, was human sacrifice more absol