to all those who have asked me, "What of France?" this
simple thing, that I do not believe the French will ever stop. I do
not believe, as the Germans have said, that French courage is
weakening, that French determination is abating. I do not believe the
Kaiser himself would think this if he had seen these men's faces as
they marched _toward_ his guns. I think he would feel as I felt, as
one must feel, that these men went willingly, hating war with their
whole soul, destitute of passion or anger. I never heard a passionate
word in France, because there had entered into their minds, into the
mind and heart of a whole race, the belief that what was at stake was
the thing that for two thousand years of history had been France.

II

MY TRIP TO VERDUN--A DYING, SHELL-RIDDEN CITY

THE VAUBAN CITADEL, IN THE SHELTER OF WHICH FALLING SHELLS
CANNOT FIND YOU--HOUSES AND BLOCKS THAT ARE VANISHING
HOURLY--"BUT WILLIAM WILL NOT COME"--WAR THAT IS INVISIBLE--A
LUNCHEON UNDERGROUND WITH A TOAST TO AMERICA--THE LAST
COURTESY FROM A GENERAL AND A HOST--NOTHING THAT WAS NOT
BEAUTIFUL

The citadel of Verdun, the bulwark of the eastern frontier in ancient
days, rises out of the meadows of the Meuse with something of the
abruptness of the sky-scraper, and still preserves that aspect which
led the writers of other wars to describe all forts as "frowning." It
was built for Louis XIV by Vauban. He took a solid rock and blasted
out redoubts and battlements. The generations that followed him dug
into the living rock and created within it a whole city of catacombs,
a vast labyrinth of passages and chambers and halls; even an elevator
was added by the latest engineers, so that one can go from floor to
floor, from the level of the meadow to the level of the summit of the
rock, possibly a hundred feet above.

By reason of the fact that many correspondents have visited this
fortress since the war began the world has come to know of the
underground life in Verdun, to think of the city as defended by some
wonderful system of subterranean works; to think of Verdun, in fact,
as a city or citadel that is defensible either by walls or by forts.
But the truth is far different: even the old citadel is but a deserted
cave; its massive walls of natural rock resist the shells as they
would repulse an avalanche; but the guns that were once on its
parapets are gone, the garrison is gone, gone far out on the trench
lines bey