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Eighteen German divisions were pitted against the worn and weary remnants of the original French defenders, and the Brandenburgers had captured the fort. But its ruins were merely a detail in the Douaumont position. To the east the French held the redoubt and to the west the village of Douaumont; and instead of carrying the plateau the Germans had been checked on its summit.
Two hundred Germans shan't turn us out of these quarters." Rats in a Trap Douaumont Fort was captured. But for that handful of men who had nominated Henri as their leader, and who crouched behind the parapet of grain-bags at the summit of the narrow flight of steps within the fort, not a Frenchman remained to defend it.
I looked across the level Meuse Valley, with its little river; I studied the wall of hills beyond. Somewhere in the tangle on the horizon was Douaumont, which the Germans held. Down the valley of the river in the haze was the town of Bras, which was French; beyond it the village of Vachereauville, which was German.
We have followed their movements later, when, abandoning the drive in a southerly direction over the slopes of the Côte du Poivre, the German war lords caused their armies to swerve to the east to face the fort of Douaumont and to march towards it.
He sent us to this place or that place where the defense was most needed. We went gladly, without fear or holding back. We were resolute that those mad dogs should not get through. 'They shall not pass'! And they did not pass!" "Glorious!" cried the priest, drinking the story in. "And you, Pierre? Where were you, what were you doing?" "I was at Douaumont, that fort on the highest hill of all.
Modern invention, high explosives, and scientific artillery had altered modes of defence, and the fort at Douaumont and the forts elsewhere encircling the sleepy town of Verdun were now but shells of masonry, mere billets for soldiers, while the guns were ranged out in the open. What a busy scene it was behind the fire-trenches in which Henri and Jules were now standing.
Yet again, behind them, were other bigger guns, splendidly dug in and hidden cleverly with straw-thatched roofs, many of them no doubt once filling the embrasures of Douaumont and other forts which in times of yore had gained for Verdun the reputation of impregnability.
The "pillar of the defence of Verdun", as the Kaiser and his War Staff had termed it, was in their hands, and at once the news was flashed broadcast across the States of Germany and to every neutral country. "Douaumont has fallen. We hold the fortress firmly in our hands. The resistance of the French before Verdun is almost broken, and in a short time we shall capture that city."
Around Douaumont the overture was just starting, the overture to a stiff fight in the afternoon, but of all the circumstances of battle that one has read of, that one still vaguely expects to see, there was not a sign. If it suited their fancy the Germans could turn the hill on which I stood into a crater of ruin, as they did with Fort Loncin at Liège.
He would never be ashamed to meet her eyes. As he went, alone or in company with others, he whistled and sang a bit. He thought of "L'Alouette" a good deal. But not too much. He thought also of the forts of Douaumont and Vaux. "Dame!" he cried to himself. "If I could help to win them back again! That would be fine! How sick that would make those cursed boches and their knock-kneed Crown Prince!"
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