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The Government replied that 227 mitrailleuses with over 800,000 cartridges, 50 mortars, 400 carriages for siege guns, several of the latter ordnance, and 300 seven-centimetre guns carrying 8600 yards, together with half a million shells of different sizes, had already been ordered, and in part delivered.
"I watched the assault of the Germans upon the village of Milancourt, near the Meuse," said a wounded Frenchman. "They came in solid ranks, without a word, loading and reloading their rifles without cessation. Our seventy-fives fell among them, and then the mitrailleuses entered into action. It was no longer a battalion.
And cannon's flesh, as after cold weapons it submitted to bullets, and meekly exposed itself to shells, bombs, far-reaching guns, mitrailleuses, mines, so it will also submit to bombs charged with suffocating gases scattered down upon it from balloons.
Many of the men will never forget the innumerable times they trudged heavily laden with a dixie of tea or stew through the mud in the tortuous communication trenches Boyau Eck, Sape 7, and the Boyau des Mitrailleuses. At times these trenches became so muddy that on one or two occasions reliefs had to be carried out over the top under cover of darkness.
With an incessant rattle of mitrailleuses and rifle-fire, the Belgians mowed down the German troops as they advanced in solid ranks, so that on each of those eight times the enemy's attack was broken and destroyed. They fell like the leaves which were then being scattered by the autumn wind and their bodies were strewn between the trenches.
The French artillery and mitrailleuses responded vigorously to the Krupps, and with deadly effect, but as far as we could see the German left continued its advance, and staff-officers came up frequently to report that all was going on well at points hidden from our view These reports were always made to the King first, and whenever anybody arrived with tidings of the fight we clustered around to hear the news, General Von Moltke unfolding a map meanwhile, and explaining the situation.
Their artillery was silent, however; and from this fact the German artillery officers grew jubilant, confidently asserting that their Krupp guns had dismounted the French batteries and knocked their mitrailleuses to pieces.
We need only recall the preparations for war, the mitrailleuses, the silver-gilt bullets, the torpedoes, and the Red Cross; the solitary prison cells, the experiments of execution by electricity and the care of the hygienic welfare of prisoners; the philanthropy of the rich, and their life, which produces the poor they are benefiting.
In each hand was one of those American institutions known as revolvers which the mere pressure of the fingers is enough to fire pocket mitrailleuses in fact. And taking advantage not only of the recoil of his assailants but also of the silence which accompanied it. "Decidedly," said he, "it was not Amerigo that discovered the New World, it was Cabot! You are not Americans, citizen balloonists!
Now those who had succeeded them, as allies, were, over a sole Marguery, discussing air-ships, armored automobiles, and mitrailleuses.
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