On the way to Menil we stopped at the village of Crevic. The Germans
were there in August, but the place is untouched--except for one
house. That house, a large one, standing in a park at one end of the
village, was the birth-place and home of General Lyautey, one of
France's best soldiers, and Germany's worst enemy in Africa. It is
no exaggeration to say that last August General Lyautey, by his
promptness and audacity, saved Morocco for France. The Germans know
it, and hate him; and as soon as the first soldiers reached
Crevic--so obscure and imperceptible a spot that even German
omniscience might have missed it--the officer in command asked for
General Lyautey's house, went straight to it, had all the papers,
portraits, furniture and family relics piled in a bonfire in the
court, and then burnt down the house. As we sat in the neglected
park with the plaintive ruin before us we heard from the gardener
this typical tale of German thoroughness and German chivalry. It is
corroborated by the fact that not another house in Crevic was
destroyed.





May 16th.




About two miles from the German frontier (_frontier_ just here as
well as front) an isolated hill rises out of the Lorraine meadows.