On the morning of the 25th the German guns roared over white fields of snow, through veils of the softly falling flakes that fluttered inexhaustibly from the leaden sky. Their thunder swelled louder and ever louder as the batteries which had changed position, consequently upon the French withdrawal during the night, got to work, searching for their target, more or less accurately finding it despite the difficulty of observation. Not a minute was to be lost. The anxious German staff knew that the reinforcements of their foes must be hurrying--hurrying. Some perhaps had already arrived. If night fell without definite victory, the morrow would surely see fresh masses against them, reinvigorating the defence. Victory to-day--complete victory--Douaumont captured, the pursuit pressed into the streets of Verdun--meant victory indeed. Mighty therefore was the effort. By noon every German battery was firing at its maximum. Under the leaden sky, over the white ground, in the still cold of a bitter frost, their thunder swelled and crashed, roaring in a never-ending frenzy. Eighteen German divisions were massed to break down all opposition. Already they had attacked--again and again. Again and again, the rapid detonations of the French guns had leaped into the din, smiting desperately, frantically, to stay them. Over there, in the mist-hung gullies of the plateau, on its bare open spaces between the woods, the snow had ceased to be white--save where it fell freshly upon the huddled bodies of the fallen. In the afternoon the weather cleared somewhat. More distant views were possible. On the higher of the Twins of Ornes, the knolls just south-west of the Forêt de Spincourt, stood the figure who more than any other individual would have to dare the answer for all the agony rolled out there before him, for all the agony that no eye could measure, spread over continents, crying to strange stars. Spiked helmet on his head, long grey cavalry-cloak wrapped about him, his field-glasses held to his eyes by the right hand only, he gazed upon the now distant conflict. At his side stood a younger figure, his face masked also by binoculars. Behind them was a group of dignitaries, generals of high position, the distinguished neutral and the Oberst who never quitted him. All gazed to the wooded scarp of the Heights of the Meuse, their glasses pointing south-south-west.