United States or Palestine ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Where the yellow sand was broken by a number of small conical knolls with here and there a group, and here and there a line, of waving palms, there, on the knolls, were clustered the Mountain Batteries and the Batteries of Mitrailleuses. The Horse, Foot and Guns were drawn up, Infantry in front, Cavalry in rear, and the Field Artillery the famous 75s at right angles.
The net receipts from the reading of Les Chatiments at the Porte Saint Martin for the gun which I have named the "Chateaudun" amounted to 7,000 francs, the balance going to pay the attendants, firemen, and lighting, the only expenses charged. At the Cail works mitrailleuses of a new model, called the Gatling model, are being made. Little Jeanne is beginning to chatter.
It was a last shot at the fugitive, from a gun hidden in one of those quiet provincial gardens between the houses; and its secret presence there was more startling than all the clatter of mitrailleuses from the rock. Silence and sleep came down again on Cassel; but an hour or two later the hush was broken by a roar like the last trump. This time it was no question of mitrailleuses.
New bands of soldiers were entering the park some with a sergeant at their head, others followed by an officer carrying a revolver at his breast as though guiding his men with it. This must be the infantry expelled from their position near the river which had come to reinforce the second line of defense. The mitrailleuses were adding their tac-tac to the cracks of the fusileers.
The neighboring battery was banging away as fast as the gunners could load the pieces; the continuous roar seemed to shake the ground, and the mitrailleuses were even more intolerable with their rasping, grating, grunting noise. Were they to remain forever reclining there among the cabbages? There was nothing to be seen, nothing to be learned; no one had any idea how the battle was going.
'No, gentlemen, he said, 'I shall not withdraw from here until the cannon are in safety. At two in the morning all was ready; the long train began to move; the cannon of 7 and the mitrailleuses of Commandant Pothier took the lead.
Some three thousand prisoners and nearly all the artillery and mitrailleuses of the division were captured, while the fugitives were pursued till they found shelter behind Douay's corps and the rest of De Failly's beyond Beaumont.
Armoured cars with mitrailleuses, motor-cars slashed and plugged by German bullets, forage carts and ambulances, struggled by in a tide of traffic between bodies of foot- soldiers slouching along without any pride, but dazed with weariness. Their uniforms were powdered with the dust of the roads, their faces were blanched and haggard for lack of food and sleep.
The French had also captured a large amount of booty which included 85 cannon, some of the largest size, 100 mitrailleuses, 26 "Minenwerfer," and stores of ammunition and war material. They took prisoner 236 officers and 12,000 men. It might well be said that this was a very splendid result. But it only marked the first stage in the French assault.
Gradually another line doubled the chain of the workers, as the upheaved corpses formed a continuous embankment, each additional dead man giving greater protection to his comrades, until the barrier began to form shape along the diameter of the wood. There others were digging and burying logs deep in the earth, installing shelters and mitrailleuses or feverishly building fortifications.
Word Of The Day