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They turned slightly to their right, and crept through the mass of trees not yet levelled by the gun-fire of either of the combatants different, indeed, from the Bois des Caures and the Herbebois, where gigantic German shells had sent trees and earth hurtling skywards, had severed trunks in all directions, and had left but a tangled mass of fallen tree-tops and shattered stumps, smouldering here and there, and masking the trenches and dug-outs and redoubts obliterated during the earlier fighting, masking, too, the bodies of those gallant Frenchmen who had given their lives for the cause, and of the Germans, who had fought to achieve the ambitions of their Kaiser.
When the struggle in the Verdun sector began the French left was resting on the centers of Brabant, Consenvoye, Haumont, and Caures Wood, their first position. The second was marked by a line passing through Samogneux, Hill 344, and Mormont Farm.
The Bois de Caures was evacuated, and then the southern end of it seized once more by some of our gallant fellows. Then there was fighting on the line to Ornes and at Herbebois, and there, too, the garrisons held their positions, having fought throughout the day and inflicted enormous losses on the Boches.
It is cold outside, and somehow coffee soothes a man's nerves after such an ordeal. Well, then, here we are, firm, and not thinking of retiring yet awhile. On the line to Haumont, they, our comrades, hold their battered trenches, and, like ourselves, have taught the enemy a severe lesson. Then, passing to our right, you get to the Bois de Caures, which this morning was held by a French garrison.
The possession of these two strong positions by the Germans exposed the French flanks to artillery fire from every direction. It was impossible that the French line, bent into a salient in front of Haumont and Caures Wood, could hold out if the Germans massed a great number of guns against it.
At 2.20 in the afternoon a large force of Germans advanced between Louvemont and Hill 347, and though the French made desperate efforts to stay the advancing waves, Les Chambrettes, Beaumont, and Fosses and Caures Woods were occupied by the enemy. Naval events such as the world had never known were believed to be impending at the beginning of the war's second year.
Trenches were obliterated, and portions of the forest were swept away. About noon a large body of German troops attacked French positions in Caures Wood, trying to turn their flanks from two sides, Haumont and La Ville Wood. The French fought with desperate energy, but the Germans had one gun that raked their chief position, and the iron ring of the enemy gradually contracted.
Frightful in result, too, was the tragic stratagem played on the Germans in Caures Wood, near the village of Beaumont. The whole wood had been mined by the French, and was connected electrically with a station in the village. When the Germans had advanced, fully a division strong, to attack the wood, the French regiment holding it ran, as if seized with panic, back toward the village.
The two other batteries were to the south of Hill 312; there was also a supporting battery of six 90-mm. guns. In response to the German attack the French replied with a curtain of fire, but, unchecked by the fearful loss of life, they began to swarm in from all sides. "They reached Caures Wood by the crests between Haumont Wood and Caures Wood itself, and advanced like a flood on our positions.
Not at all; they took off their coats and, working in their shirt sleeves, increased their efforts to intensify the curtain of fire and to avenge their leaders and comrades." The defense of Caures Wood by Lieutenant Colonel Driant's chasseurs was one of the most brilliant and dramatic incidents in the battle of Verdun.
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