“Yet there are other things in war.  Fine and splendid things.  It was magnificent to see your English gunners come up.  They were rather late in the field.  They did not appear until midday on September 7, when the big battle was going on, and when we were doing our best to push back the German right wing.  They came up just as if they were on the parade ground, marvellously cool, very chic fellows, superb in their manner of handling their guns.  It was heavy artillery, and we badly wanted it.  And nothing could budge your men, though the German shell-fire was very hot.”

“That is the way with your British gunners.  They are different from the French, who are always best when they are moving forward, but do not like to stay in one position.  But when your men have taken up their ground, nothing can move them.  Nothing on earth!”

“And yet the German shells were terrifying.  I confess to you that there were times when my nerves were absolutely gone.  I crouched down with my men—­we were in open formation—­and ducked my head at the sound of the bursting ‘obus’ and trembled in every limb as though I had a fit of ague.  God rebuked me for the bombast with which I had spoken to my men.”

“One hears the zip-zip of the bullets, the boom of the great guns, the tang of our sharp French artillery, and in all this infernal experience of noise and stench, the screams of dying horses and men joined with the fury of the gun-fire, and rose shrill above it.  No man may boast of his courage.  Dear God, there were moments when I was a coward with all of them!”

“But one gets used to it, as to all things.  My ague did not last long.  Soon I was cheering and shouting again.  We cleared the enemy out of the village of Bregy, and that was where I fell wounded in the arm pretty badly, by a bit of shell.  I bled like a stuck pig, as you can see, but when I came to myself again a brother officer told me that things were going on well, and that we had rolled back the German right.  That was better than a bandage to me.  I felt very well again, in spite of my weakness.”

“It is the beginning of the end.  The Germans are on the run.  They are exhausted and demoralized.  Their pride has been broken.  They are short of ammunition.  They know that their plans have failed.  Now that we have them on the move nothing will save them.  This war is going to finish quicker than people thought.  I believe that in a few days the enemy will be broken, and that we shall have nothing more to do than kill them as they fight back in retreat.”

That is the story without any re-touching of my own, of the young lieutenant of Zouaves whom I met after the battle of Meaux, with the blood still splashed upon his uniform.

It is a human story, giving the experience of only one individual in a great battle, but clearly enough there emerges from it the truth of that great operation which did irreparable damage to the German right wing in its plan of campaign.  The optimism with which this officer ended his tale makes one smile a little now, though in a pitiful way.  The words in which he prophesied a quick finish to the war were spoken in September 1914, before the agony of the winter campaign, the awful monotony of that siege warfare, and the tides of blood that came in the spring of another year.