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"Will they hold?" was the question which every man among us asked of
his neighbor and of his soul.
On our front there was nothing of war beyond the daily routine of the
trenches and the daily list of deaths and wounds. Winter had closed
down upon us in Flanders, and through its fogs and snows came the news
of that conflict round Verdun to the waiting army, which was ours. The
news was bad, yet not the worst. Poring over maps of the French front,
we in our winter quarters saw with secret terror, some of us with a
bluster of false optimism, some of us with unjustified despair, that
the French were giving ground, giving ground slowly, after heroic
resistance, after dreadful massacre, and steadily. They were falling
back to the inner line of forts, hard pressed. The Germans, in spite
of monstrous losses under the flail of the soixante-quinzes, were
forcing their way from slope to slope, capturing positions which all
but dominated the whole of the Verdun heights.
"If the French break we shall lose the war," said the pessimist.


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