'Neath Verdun
PREFATORY NOTE
The following work has been scrutinized by the French MilitaryAuthorities, and the word (Censored) will be found in the text toindicate the eliminations they have deemed it expedient to make.
'Neath Verdun
August—October, 1914
By Maurice Genevoix.
With a Preface by Ernest Lavisse
TRANSLATED BY
H. GRAHAME RICHARDS
Translator of:
"Hunters and Hunting in the Arctic" (Duc d'Orleans)
"Expansion of Modern Germany" etc., etc.
"Geographical Distribution of Capital" (Prof. A. Vergogni)
LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO.
PATERNOSTERROW :: :: 1916
TO THE MEMORY OF MY FRIEND
ROBERT PORCHON
Mentioned in Army Orders for "admirable bravery"
KILLED AT LES EPARGES
THE 20th OF FEBRUARY, 1915
CONTENTS
| I.— | Contact is established | 1 |
| II.— | The Crossing of the Meuse | 19 |
| III.— | The Retreat | 31 |
| IV.— | The Days of the Marne | 44 |
| V.— | Behind the Crown Prince's Army | 118 |
| VI.— | In the Woods | 160 |
| VII.— | The Armies go to Earth | 205 |
PREFACE
The author of this work, Mr. Maurice Genevoix, is a second-yearstudent at the Ecole Normale, Paris. Having finished the second yearof his course and, incidentally, completed a study "on Maupassant," hewas in a position to regard with pleasant anticipation the vacationdue to fall in July, 1914—a month later he received his baptism offire, and of what a fire!
He supplies us with an invaluable picture of the war.
In the first place, the writer is endowed with astonishing powers ofobservation; he sees all in a glance, he hears everything. The intensepower of concentration he possesses enables him instantly to seizeupon all essentials of a particular incident or scene, and so toharmonize them as to produce a picture true to life.
Nothing escapes him—the song or hiss of bullets, the diverse notes ofhurtling shells, the explosions, the shatterings—every tone of t