in a heap.

"We pushed the French back, taking a few prisoners as we went, until on
the other side of this hill our artillery began to rake them, and then
they gave way altogether and retreated to the south, taking their guns.
Remember, they outnumbered us and they had the advantage of position;
but we whipped them--we Germans--as we always do whip our enemies."

His voice changed from boasting to pity:

"Ach, but it was shameful that they should have been sent against us
wearing those long blue coats, those red trousers, those shiny black
belts and bright brass buttons! At a mile, or even half a mile, the
Germans in their dark-gray uniforms, with dull facings, fade into the
background; but a Frenchman in his foolish monkey clothes is a target
for as far as you can see him.

"And their equipment--see how flimsy it is when compared with ours! And
their guns--so inferior, so old-fashioned alongside the German guns! I
tell you this: Forty-four years they have been wishing to fight us for
what we did in 1870; and when the time comes they are not ready and we
are ready. While they have been singing their Marseillaise Hymn, we
have been thinking. While they have been talking, we have been
working."

Next he escorted us back along the small plateau that extended south
from the face of the bluff. We made our way through a constantly
growing confusion of abandoned equipment and garments--all the flotsam
and jetsam of a rout. I suppose we saw as many as fifty smashed French
rifles, as many as a hundred and fifty canteens and knapsacks.