terfered, that the French high command had
yielded and that Verdun was to be defended to the last ditch.

When this decision was made the end of the real German advance was
almost instantaneous. All that has happened since has been nothing but
active trench war, violent fighting, desperate charge and counter
charge, a material shortening of the French line at certain points,
the abolition of minor salients, but of actual progress not the
smallest. The advance stopped before lines on which Petain elected to
make his stand when he came with his army to defend Verdun. The
Germans are still several miles outside of Verdun itself, and only at
Douaumont have they touched the line of the exterior forts, which
before the war were expected to defend the city.

In Paris and elsewhere you will be told that Douaumont was occupied
without resistance and that it was abandoned under orders before there
had been a decision to hold Verdun. I do not pretend to know whether
this is true or not, although I heard it on authority that was wholly
credible, but the fact that the map discloses, that I saw for myself
at Verdun, is that, save for Douaumont, none of the old forts have
been taken and that the Germans have never been able to advance a foot
from Douaumont or reach the other forts at any other point. And this
is nothing more or less than the French experience at Champagne, the
German experience about Ypres in 1915.

In a later chapter I hope to discuss the situation at Verdun as I saw
it on April 6th, and also the miracle of motor transport which played
so great a part in the successful defence of the position. But the
military details are wholly subordinate to the moral. All France was
roused by a successful defence of a position attacked by Germany with
the advertised purpose of breaking the spirit of the French people.
The battle was fought in the plain daylight without the smallest
concealment, and the least-informed reader of the official reports
could grasp the issue which was the fate of the city of Verdun.

The fact, known to a certain number of Frenchmen only, that the
defence was improvised after the decision had been made to evacuate
the whole salient, serves for them to increase the meaning of the
victory as it increases the real extent of the French exploit. But
this is a detail. The Germans openly, deliberately, after long
preparation, announced their purpose, used every conceivable bit of
strength they could bring t