Such, in brief outline, is the story which has been told in our two former volumes. It is the story of the most ruthless and determined assault that has ever been made upon the liberties of mankind in the whole history of the world. We see master minds plotting and planning for long, secret years, watching and waiting for an occasion to swoop down upon unsuspecting neighbours and rob them of life and freedom and the fruits of their toil. We see them launching millions of men, armed with every death-dealing device that fiendish ingenuity can frame, against a little peaceful people that dares to stand in their way. The earth shakes with the roar of gigantic guns and the thunderclaps of bursting shells. Fortresses crumble to shapeless ruin; homesteads are given to the flames; temples of God are profaned and despoiled; monuments of art and piety are blotted out; cities are shattered; young and old, man, woman, and child, are given to the sword, and wherever the battle has raged there are ghastly heaps of dead and dying, "friend and foe in one red burial blent." Onward sweep the conquering legions, with pillars of cloud by day and pillars of fire by night, and it would seem that nothing human could give them pause. Armies recoil before them; but strive as they may, they cannot overwhelm them. Victory sits upon their banners, when suddenly those whom they have hunted and harried across the fair fields of France spring forward with undaunted fire and vigour, and the torrent is stayed. Then it is swept back, and soon the invaders are hemmed in by a ring of steel, against which they fling themselves in baffled rage like a trapped tiger against the bars of his cage. Such is the story of seventy-seven days of bloodshed, horror, destruction, and woe--days which can never be forgotten while the memory of man endures. [Footnote 1:] _Ar-twa´_, former province of France, now forming the greater part of the department Pas-de-Calais. Its name is derived from Arras, its capital.] [Footnote 2: The Colossus of Rhodes was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was a huge figure of brass one hundred and twenty feet high, and it strode across the harbour mouth.] [Footnote 3: This old province of France lies between the Aube on the north, the Rhone on the south, the Meuse on the east, and the Loire on the west.] CHAPTER II. SOME GERMAN THEORIES OF WAR. Before I proceed with my story, let me call your attention to certain theories of war with which the German General Staff began the campaign. By a theory of war I mean some plan or scheme which, in the judgment of those making it, is _likely_ to prove of great advantage, but which can only be _proved_ to be so by actual practice. Some of the German theories turned out to be right, others wrong, as we shall see.