The Soul of the War

ille, round the south of Amiens, and the situation was not a happy one in view of the rapid advance

the roads. The whole day had been exciting and unnerving. The roads along which I had passed were filled with soldiers marching towards an enemy which was

s distant-a small patrol of outposts belonging to the squadrons which wer

s had come to a dead halt. The children were playing on the banks-with that divine carelessness and innocence which made one's heart ache for them in this beastly business of war-and their fathers and mothers, whose world

salute, and shuffled along merrily with their rifles slung behind their backs. Military motor-cars carrying little parties of French officers swept down the roads, and then there were no more battalions but only stragglers, and hurrying fugitives driving along in farmers' carts, packed with household goods, in two-wheeled gigs, overburdened with women and children, riding on bicycles, with parcels tied to th

hlans, spreading out from a strong force at Cambrai itself, had been engaged by the French Territorials, and after some sharp fighting had retired, leav

further along the road, at a place called Bapeaume. All day on Friday there was very heavy

only the retreat of some of the F

citizens of Amiens- who only whispered as they stared at this procession in the darkness. A cuirassier with his head bent upon his chest stumbled forward, leading a horse too weak and tired to bear him. There were many other men leading their poor beasts in this way; and infantry soldiers, some of them with bandaged heads, clung on to the backs of the carts and wagons, and seemed

ting with old friends; there was a hugger-mugger of uniforms on provision carts and ambulances. It was a part of the wreckage and wastage of the war, and to the onlooker, exaggerating unconsciously the importance of the things close at hand and visib

iving corpses, or as though drugged with fatigue. It is heartrending to see poor beasts stumbling

houting and singing, though here and there a white-faced boy tried to hide his tears as women from the crowd ran to embrace him. The Marseillaise, the hymn of faith, rang out a little raggedly, but bravely all the same. The lads-"poor children" they were called by a white-haired man who watched them-were keeping up the valour of their hearts b

giments from the town barracks. They had moved out of Amiens, and there was a strange quietude in the streets, hardly a man in uniform to be seen in places which had been filled with soldiers the day

self would be saved from possible bombardment by this withdrawal of the troops to positions which would draw the Germans into the open? They only knew that they were undefended, and presently they found that the civilian trains were being suspended, and that there would b

e of military operations. Their husbands were fighting for France, and they could not tell whether they were alive or dead. They had been without any solid food for several days, and the nerves of those poor women were tried to the uttermost, not by any fear for their

a few minutes. For the sake of her handsome boy, who had a hero's courage, and fo

at the time). "The soldier suffers less than the women and the non-combatants.

to the ambulance cart or the field-hospital. The incessant marching, forwards and backwards, to new positions in the blazing sun was more awful to bear than the actual fighting under the hideous fire of the German guns. They were kept on the move constantly, except for the briefest lulls-when officers and men dropped, like brown