dano1917
RIP
TO THE SOUND OF THE GUNS
"On the side of the road a column was coming toward us, A column of men who were leaving the trenches for a rest, the men who for the recent days had held the first line. Wearily but steadily they streamed by; the mud of the trenches covered their tunics; here and there a man had lost his steel helmet wnd wore a knndkerchief about his head, probably to conceal a slight wound that but for the helmet had killed him. But it was the line on the other side of the road that held the eye. Here were the troops that were going toward the fire, toward the trenches......They were hardly ten feet from me..........and seeing the faces brought an instant shock; they all........were in the thirties, not the twenties....men of full manhood. Almost in a flash the fact came home. This is what all the graves along the road had meant.....France had sent her youth and they were spent; she was sending her manhood now. Yet you could not but feel that as they went a little wearily, sadly, they marched willingly. They would not have it otherwise. their faces were the faces of men who had taken full measure of their own fate. Somehow you felt this was in the minds of all these men. they had willed to die that France might live.......This death had eaten up all that was young.....of France; it might yet consume France; and so these men marched to the sound of the guns......"
Written by Edouard Hallasey (a U.S. reporter there at Verdun)
"On the side of the road a column was coming toward us, A column of men who were leaving the trenches for a rest, the men who for the recent days had held the first line. Wearily but steadily they streamed by; the mud of the trenches covered their tunics; here and there a man had lost his steel helmet wnd wore a knndkerchief about his head, probably to conceal a slight wound that but for the helmet had killed him. But it was the line on the other side of the road that held the eye. Here were the troops that were going toward the fire, toward the trenches......They were hardly ten feet from me..........and seeing the faces brought an instant shock; they all........were in the thirties, not the twenties....men of full manhood. Almost in a flash the fact came home. This is what all the graves along the road had meant.....France had sent her youth and they were spent; she was sending her manhood now. Yet you could not but feel that as they went a little wearily, sadly, they marched willingly. They would not have it otherwise. their faces were the faces of men who had taken full measure of their own fate. Somehow you felt this was in the minds of all these men. they had willed to die that France might live.......This death had eaten up all that was young.....of France; it might yet consume France; and so these men marched to the sound of the guns......"
Written by Edouard Hallasey (a U.S. reporter there at Verdun)