should, he would no longer be a Frenchman or a German in time of
war.

At our service in front of the hotel were waiting two mortals in goatskin
coats, with scarfs around their ears and French military caps on top of
the scarfs. They were official army chauffeurs. If you have ridden
through the Alleghenies in winter in an open car, why explain that
seeing the Vosges front in a motor-car may be a joy ride to an
Eskimo, but not to your humble servant? But the roads were perfect;
as good wherever we went in this mountain country as from New
York to Poughkeepsie. I need not tell you this if you have been in
France; but you will be interested to know that Lorraine keeps her
roads in perfect repair even in war time.

Crossing the swollen Moselle on a military bridge, twisting in and out
of valleys and speeding through villages, one saw who were guarding
the army's secrets, but little of the army itself and few signs of
transportation on a bleak, snowy day. At the outskirts of every village,
at every bridge, and at intervals along the road, Territorial sentries
stopped the car. Having an officer along was not sufficient to let you
whizz by important posts. He must show his pass. Every sentry was a
reminder of the hopelessness of being a correspondent these days
without official sanction.

The sentries were men in the thirties. In Belgium, their German
counterpart, the Landsturm, were the monitors of a journey that I
made. No troops are more military than the first line Germans; but in
the snap and spirit of his salute the French Territorial has an élan, a
martial fervour, which the phlegmatic German in the thirties lacks.