With this second intention, I was to have combined, by the courtesy of
the French Headquarters, a visit to certain central portions of the
French line, including Soissons, Reims, and Verdun. But by the time I
reached France the great operations that have since marked the
Soissons-Reims front were in active preparation; roads and motor-cars
were absorbed by the movements of troops and stores; Reims and Verdun
were under renewed bombardment; and visits to this section of the French
line were entirely held up. The French authorities, understanding that I
chiefly wished to see for myself some of the wrecked and ruined villages
and towns dealt with in the French official reports, suggested, first
Senlis and the battle-fields of the Ourcq, and then Nancy, the ruined
villages of Lorraine, and that portion of their eastern frontier line
where, simultaneously with the Battle of the Marne, General Castelnau
directed from the plateau of Amance and the Grand Couronne that strong
defence of Nancy which protected--and still protects--the French right,
and has baulked all the German attempts to turn it.
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