day had brightened into a cold sunlight, and as we sped south from Nancy
on the Lunéville road, through the old town of St. Nicholas du Port,
with its remarkable church, and past the great salt works at Dombasle,
all the country-side was clear to view.

Good fortune indeed!--as I soon discovered when, after climbing a steep
hill to the east of the road, we found ourselves in full view of the
fighting lines and a wide section of the frontier, with the Forest of
Parroy, which is still partly German, stretching its dark length
southward on the right, while to the north ran the famous heights of the
Grand Couronné;--name of good omen!--which suggests so happily the
historical importance of the ridge which protects Nancy and covers the
French right. Then, turning westward, one looked over the valley of the
Meurthe, with its various tributaries, the Mortagne in particular, on
which stands Gerbéviller; and away to the Moselle and the Meuse. But the
panoramic view was really made to live and speak for me by the able man
at my side. With French precision and French logic, he began with the
geography of the country, its rivers and hills and plateaux, and its
natural capacities for defence against the German enemy; handling the
view as though it had been a great map, and pointing out, as he went,
the disposition of the French frontier armies, and the use made of this
feature and that by the French generals in command.

This Lorraine Campaign, at the opening of the war, is very little
realised outside France. It lasted some three weeks. It was preceded by
the calamitous French reverse at Morhange, where, on August 20th,
portions of the 15th and 16th Corps of the Second Army, young troops
drawn from south-western France--who in subsequent actions fought with
great bravery--broke in rout before a tremendous German attack. The
defeat almost gave the Germans Nancy. But General Castelnau and General