east to get out of the trenches,
to meet the enemy face to face and to see German arrogance
turned into suppliance. We knew many splendid moments,
worth having endured many trials for. But in our larger aim,
of piercing their line, of breaking the long deadlock,
of entering Vouziers in triumph, of course we failed." Then he proceeds:

==

This affair only deepened my admiration for, my loyalty to, the French.
If we did not entirely succeed, it was not the fault of the French soldier.
He is a better man, man for man, than the German. Anyone who had seen
the charge of the Marsouins at Souain would acknowledge it.
Never was anything more magnificent. I remember a captain,
badly wounded in the leg, as he passed us, borne back on a litter
by four German prisoners. He asked us what regiment we were,
and when we told him, he cried "Vive la Legion," and kept repeating
"Nous les avons en. Nous les avons en." He was suffering, but,
oblivious of his wound, was still fired with the enthusiasm of the assault
and all radiant with victory. What a contrast with the German wounded
on whose faces was nothing but terror and despair. What is the stimulus
in their slogans of "Gott mit uns" and "Fuer Koenig und Vaterland"
beside that of men really fighting in defense of their country?
Whatever be the force in international conflicts of having justice
and all the principles of personal morality on one's side, it at least
gives the French soldier a strength that's like the strength of ten
against an adversary whose weapon is only brute violence.
It is inconceivable that a Frenchman, forced to yield,
could behave as I saw German prisoners behave, trembling, on their knees,
for all the world like criminals at length overpowered and brought to justice.
Such men have to be driven to the assault, or intoxicated.
But the Frenchman who goes up is possessed with a passion
beside which any of the other forms of experience that are reckoned
to make life worth while seem pale in comparison.

==

A report appeared in the American newspapers that he had been killed
in the battle of Champagne. On learning of it, he wrote to his mother:

==

I am 'navre' to think of your having suffered so.
I should have arranged to cable after the attack, had I known
that any such absurd rumours had been started. Here one has
a wholesome notion of the unimportance of the individual.
It needs an effort of imagination to conceive of its making
any partic