g-lines were thus facing one another across two hundred
and fifty yards of open field; the men lying shoulder to shoulder were
plainly visible to their opponents. The German firing-line was marked
by nine dead. The shooting of the Guard was excellent and thus in
marked contrast to the poor shooting of other German organizations
which we had observed. The French position was marked by more than
three hundred dead, and the roots and lower branches of some pine
saplings near by were riddled with bullets; indeed, some of these had
actually been cut down by rifle fire, and I estimated that there was
on an average at least one bullet for every two square inches of bark.
Nearly all the French must have been put out of action before the
Germans finally charged, for the latter had only some twenty men
killed in crossing the open to the French position. This is such a
small loss to suffer when pushing home a bayonet charge, that the only
explanation would be that few French were left to resist this final
dash. In one place there was a pile of eleven dead Frenchmen who had
evidently been killed in a desperate last stand.

Throughout this action the French had manifestly stood their ground
very stubbornly, despite desperate losses, and had at no time broken
or retreated. There were only ten dead behind their firing-line and
these had been killed with the bayonet while fighting in the open.
Another French regiment adjacent to them, in some woods farther west,
had suffered no less heavily, and the woods were here literally dotted
with the bodies of the dead. Our conclusion was that all the Frenchmen
had been put out of action. It should be remembered that the ratio of
wounded to killed is at least four to one. Colonel Allen said that he
could not imagine worse destruction than these two regiments suffered.
Evidently it was part of the price the French army so willingly paid
for their great victory.

* * * * *

We followed along the Petit Morin and the marshes of St. Gond. Here
not far from Soizy-aux-Bois had been a furious bayonet fight in which
a French colonial brigade had carried the German positions. At one
point a regiment of Turcos had advanced across the Petit Morin and
charged to the bare hill toward a long well-made trench held by a
battalion of German infantry whose fire had not deterred them. As the
Turcos closed in, the Germans jumped out of their trench and re-formed
in a line behind it,