It was to liberate their brothers and
sisters from the outrageous tyranny of the German yoke in the captured
country. It was to seek vengeance for bloody, foul, and abominable
deeds.
In the first days of the war France was struck by heavy blows which
sent her armies reeling back in retreat, but before the first battle
of the Marne, when her peril was greatest, when Paris seemed doomed,
the spirit of the French soldiers rose to a supreme act of faith--
which was fulfilled when Foch attacked in the center, when Manoury
struck on the enemy's flank and hundreds of thousands of young
Frenchmen hurled themselves, reckless of life, upon the monster which
faltered and then fled behind the shelter of the Aisne. With bloodshot
eyes and parched throats and swollen tongues, blind with sweat and
blood, mad with the heat and fury of attack, the French soldiers
fought through that first battle of the Marne and saved France from
defeat and despair.
After that, year after year, they flung themselves against the German
defense and died in heaps, or held their lines, as at Verdun, against
colossal onslaught, until the dead lay in masses.
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