rously
wooded--guns of huge dimensions were already in position, and others
more movable were being massed, till hundreds and hundreds were ready
to pour shot and shell upon the French defences. In every hollow, in
every fold of the ground, under the trees, behind every sort of cover,
German hosts were secretly collected, getting ready for that moment,
now almost at hand, when the War Lord would launch his legions. In
fact, Germany was to attempt on the Western Front, and against the
French, precisely what she had attempted against the Russians with some
degree of success, but yet without attaining her ambitions. She had
aimed to crush Russia once for all, and, as we have said, had pushed
the Tsar's legions back towards the heart of Russia. Yet the line of
Muscovite soldiers was still unbroken, still undaunted, and still faced
the soldiers of Germany and Austria. And on the west, Britain was
getting stronger and stronger as the days went by, and becoming a
greater menace. Yet, if the French could be smashed at any point,
there might yet be time for the Kaiser's troops to defeat the British,
when unsupported by their French ally, and afterwards to turn again
towards Russia. The enormous prestige to be gained by the capture of
Verdun would enhance Germany's chances, and a surprise attack might,
and probably would, the Kaiser's General Staff considered, result in a
triumph which would change Germany's fortunes.

But a few words with reference to Verdun itself, and we can return to
Henri and his friends, now in Louvain. We have said already that the
old city of Verdun, perched beside the River Meuse, in a gorgeously
wooded country, and with the heights of the river-side lying between it
and the enemy, was encircled by forts, which, prior to the war, gave to
the city the reputation of impregnability. But the forts of Liege, in
Belgium, had borne that selfsame reputation, and yet, when the Kaiser's
forces treacherously invaded that country, and were held up at Liege,
the huge guns prepared before-hand for this conflict shattered its
forts--masses of steel and concrete--like so much paper, and later
crushed the concrete defences of Maubeuge. Without a doubt, the same
fate would be meted out to the forts at Verdun, were the French to rely
upon them. But France is a nation of brilliant soldiers. Realizing at
once that what was an impregnable fort in former days is now hardly
better than an incubus--a mere house of ca