titanic struggle.

General Henri Phillip Petain, in direct command of the French operations
at Verdun, endeared himself to the hearts of all his countrymen by his
gallant conduct of the defense. While the decision of General Joffre, the
French commander-in-chief, to give ground before the German attacks
rather than to sacrifice his men in a useless defense of the fortresses,
was criticized at first by the people, the resulting value of this move
was soon apparent and censure turned to praise.

While the heaviest assaults of the Germans were launched in the
immediate vicinity of Verdun itself, the great battle line stretched far
to the north and to the south. When it appeared at one time that the
French must be hurled back, General Sir Douglas Haig, the British
commander-in-chief, weakened his own lines to the far north to take over
a portion of the ground just to his right and thus relieved the French
situation at Verdun somewhat.

General Petain thus was enabled to shorten his own lines, and from that
moment, with few exceptions, the French stood firm.

It seemed that the Germans, beaten off time after time as they were, must
soon abandon the attempt to break the French lines at Verdun; but each
repulse brought a new assault mightier than before. The Germans raced
across the open ground under a veritable hail of lead. They fell by
hundreds and thousands, but what few survived hurled themselves against
the barbed wire entanglements of the French or into the trenches, there
to die upon the points of the foes' bayonets, or to be shot down as they
tumbled over the breastworks.