This Lorraine Campaign, at the opening of the war, is very little
realised outside France. It lasted some three weeks. It was preceded by
the calamitous French reverse at Morhange, where, on August 20th,
portions of the 15th and 16th Corps of the Second Army, young troops
drawn from south-western France--who in subsequent actions fought with
great bravery--broke in rout before a tremendous German attack. The
defeat almost gave the Germans Nancy. But General Castelnau and General
Foch, between them, retrieved the disaster. They fell back on Nancy and
the line of the Mortagne, while the Germans, advancing farther south,
occupied Luneville (August 22nd) and burnt Gerbeviller. On the 23rd,
24th, and 25th there was fierce fighting on and near this hill on which
we stood. Capitaine de G---- with the 2nd Battalion of Chausseurs, under
General Dubail, had been in the thick of the struggle, and he described
to me the action on the slopes beneath us, and how, through his glasses,
he had watched the enemy on the neighbouring hill forcing parties of
French civilians to bury the German dead and dig German trenches, under
the fire of their own people.
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