“The 3rd Battalion of the 7th Regiment of Reserves was to attack towards the northern slopes of Fort Vaux. More than half the battalion was cut down by the French machine-guns. Some twenty men, at most, of the 9th Company reached the enemy trenches, where they were captured. The rest must have been annihilated, for the curtain fire prevented them from escaping and getting back to the trenches from which they started. “The revictualling of the first-line troops is almost impossible. The troops are reduced to consuming their emergency rations.” A soldier of the same regiment records a scene described to him by a comrade who has just come back from special leave. The latter saw a convoy of prisoners pass at a station in Germany: women were jeering at them and insulting them. One of the Frenchmen called out in German: “Women of Germany, don’t jeer at us! We are prisoners, that’s true, but in front of Verdun the Germans are lying in heaps as high as this.” After that the German women said no more. * * * * * Here are some extracts from letters found on prisoners or dead in the Vaux Sector. Private E----, of the 6th Leib. Gren. Regt., writes: “_Before Verdun, March 10._--Since yesterday morning there has been a heavy snowfall: it stops everything and interferes with the operations before Verdun. We can’t get away from the cold, the rain, the snow, and the mud, and we camp out in the open. Each man digs himself in as best he can, wraps himself up in his coat and his canvas bag, and freezes all night. To make matters worse, we are constantly under an artillery fire which claims a large number of victims every evening, for we have no trenches or shelter; up to the present we have been in the second line. To-night we pass into the first line. We no longer have any confidence in our heavy artillery; yesterday morning our division captured Vaux fort and village, but had to evacuate them because our artillery fired into the place without a break.” Private E---- believed what he had been told of the capture of the fort. The lieutenant of the 7th Regiment of Reserves, which is on the slopes of Vaux, knows the real truth: “_March 11._--At three o’clock we start off for the position in front of Fort Vaux. At sunrise, we occupy the position which was held by the 6th Regiment. The fort is two hundred yards in front of this line. The position consists of shell-holes which have no longer any spaces left between them.” “Two hundred yards”: he seems to be a little short-sighted. At three hundred yards from the fort, on March 11, one saw nothing but corpses. Some days later, a soldier whose name is illegible scribbled this note on the hillsides of Vaux: “_March 24, 1916, before Fort Vaux._--There is no need for me to write any more. All the rest may be left to the imagination. Still I want to be hopeful. It’s hard, very hard! I am still so young. What’s the use? What’s the good of prayer and entreaty? The shells! The shells!”