"A major when the war began and an officer of reserves," mon
capitaine, who had brought us out from Paris, explained about the
colonel. We were soon used to hearing that a colonel had been a
major or a major a captain before the Kaiser had tried to get Nancy.
There was quick death and speedy promotion at the great battle of
Lorraine, as there was at Gettysburg and Antietam.

"They charged out of the woods, and we had a battalion of reserves--
here are some of them--mes poilus!"

He turned affectionately to the bearded fellows in scarfs who had
come out of the shelter. They smiled back. Now, as we all chatted
together, officer-and-man distinction disappeared. We were in a
family party.

It was all very simple to mes poilus, that first fight. They had been told
to hold. If Ste. Geneviève were lost, the Amance plateau was in
danger, and the loss of the Amance plateau meant the fall of Nancy.
Some military martinets say that the soldiers of France think too
much. In this case thinking may have taught them responsibility. So
they held; they lay tight, these reserves, and kept on firing as the
Germans swarmed out of the woods.

"And the Germans stopped there, monsieur. They hadn't very far to
go, had they? But the last fifty yards, monsieur, are the hardest
travelling when you are trying to take a trench."

They knew, these poilus, these veterans. Every soldier who serves in
Lorraine knows. They themselves have tried to rush out of the edge
of a woods across an open space against intrenched Germans and