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Again and again the 75's on the hill mowed down the advancing hordes and the heavy guns behind completed their work. The Germans broke and fled, never to return.
Crowds gazed upon the bulletin boards and tried to picture the steady advance of German field-gray through the streets of Liège, asked their neighbors what were these French 75's, and endeavored to locate Mons and Verdun on inadequate maps. Interest could not be more intense, but it was the interest of the moving-picture devotee.
And some add that the two batteries of 75's up yonder are already captured. A whistle rings out "Come, march!" We continue the retreat. There are two battalions of us in all no soldier in front of us; no French soldier behind us. I have neighbors who are unknown to me, motley men, routed and stupefied, artillery and engineers; unknown men who come and go away, who seem to be born and seem to die.
Occasionally an apparently wild chaos of guns and limbers and horses proclaimed that the battery had been successfully brought into action; usually, however, the work was confined to getting the vehicles along under these novel conditions. Alongside our own, French artillery with their natty little "75's" daily strove to put the finishing touches to their preparation.
After all, screams were not unusual in those days of strenuous combat, when Germans were driven to the assault, time and again, and death and destruction were so near them that terrible shell-fire which smote them from the missiles of the French 75's, the raking hail of bullets from machine-guns, the detonation of exploding missiles, the roar, the crash, the smoke, the ever-present danger.
Guns of every caliber from the 75's to the 120's and 240's, ammunition pack trains, ambulances horse-drawn and motor-drawn, big and little motor trucks, staff officers' cars, cycle riders and motor cycle riders, small two-wheeled carts, all were mixed with the flow of infantry going and coming and crowding the road-menders off the road.
Two or three kilometres off, towards Steenstraate, the cannon were working away furiously, while only a few paces from our shanty a section of our 75's was firing incessantly over the wood upon Bixschoote; overhead we heard the unpleasant roar of the big German shells; and in the midst of the racket I saw my bridge players dragging their table over to the broken window.
"Ammunition is becoming a very serious matter, owing to the ceaseless fighting since April 25th. The Junia has not turned up and has but a small supply when she does. 18 pr. shell is vital necessity." 5th May, 1915. H.M.T. "Arcadian." A wearing, nerve-racking, night-long fire by the Turks and the French 75's. They, at least, both of them, seem to have a good supply of shell.
Each of them had the satisfaction of knowing that there was no chance of his returning with an empty wagon, as there is no lack of provisions to feed the hungriest of the "75's" or any of her larger sisters. The fact that it is known that there is an ample supply of munitions plays an important part in the "morale" of the troops.
May my cane grow into a marshal's baton. A charming young artillery subaltern is our guide in that maze of trenches, and we walk and walk and walk, with a brisk exchange of compliments between the '75's' of the French and the '77's' of the Germans going on high over our heads. The trenches are boarded at the sides, and have a more permanent look than those of Flanders.
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