They Shall Not Pass

Grateful acknowledgment is hereby made to the New York Tribune for permission to reprint these articles in book form. CONTENTS PAGE I. My Trip to Verdun—General Pétain Face to Face 3 The men who hold the line—what their faces told of the past and the future of France. II. My Trip to Verdun—A Dying, Shell-Ridden City 43 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. III. Battle of Verdun Another Gettysburg 72 Failure of Crown Prince likened by French to "high tide" of confederacy. IV. Verdun, the Door That Leads Nowhere 95 The battle and the topography of the battlefield—an analysis of the attack and defence. V. In Sight of the Promised Land—on the Lorraine Battlefield 116 THEY SHALL NOT PASS I MY TRIP TO VERDUN—GENERAL PÉTAIN FACE TO FACE ToC THE MEN WHO HOLD THE LINE—WHAT THEIR FACES TOLD OF THE PAST AND THE FUTURE OF FRANCE My road to Verdun ran through the Elysée Palace, and it was to the courtesy and interest of the President of the French Republic that I owed my opportunity to see the battle for the Meuse city at close range. Already through the kindness of the French General Staff I had seen the Lorraine and Marne battlegrounds and had been guided over these fields by officers who had shared in the opening battles that saved France. But Verdun was more difficult; there is little time for caring for the wandering correspondent when a decisive contest is going forward, and quite naturally the General Staff turned a deaf ear to my request. Through the kindness of one of the many Frenchmen who gave time and effort to make my pilgrimage a success I was at last able to see M. Poincaré. Like our own American President, the French Chief Magistrate is never interviewed, and I mention this audience simply because it was one more and in a sense the final proof for me of the friendliness, the courtesy, the interest that the American will find to-day in France. I had gone to Paris, my ears filled with the warnings of those who told me that it was hard to be an American in