At a small village locally known as Napoleon's Island we found the railway station demolished and the line of trucks the French had used as a barricade. These trucks had been almost shot to pieces, and many were stained with blood. Outside the station the small restaurant roof had been shot away; the windows were smashed, and much furniture had been destroyed. Nevertheless the proprietor had rearranged his damaged premises as well as possible and was serving customers as if nothing had happened. Just outside this village there are large common graves in which French and German soldiers lie buried together in their uniforms. Large mounds mark these sites. Here again the villagers have placed roughly hewn crosses. Not far from Huningen we met an intelligent Alsatian peasant who remembered the war of 1870 and had witnessed some engagements in the last few days. Here is his account of what he saw: "The bravery on both sides was amazing. The effects of artillery fire are terrific. The shells burst, and where you formerly saw a body of soldiers you see a heap of corpses or a number of figures writhing on the ground, torn and mutilated by the fragments of the shell. Those who are unhurt scatter for the moment, but quickly regain their composure and take up their positions in the fighting line as if nothing had happened. The effects of other weapons are as bad. It seems remarkable that soldiers can see the destruction worked all around them, yet can control their nerves sufficiently to continue fighting. "I remember the battles of 1870, in five or six of which I fought myself, but they bear no comparison with the battles of 1914. War forty-four years ago was child's play compared with war at the present time." In several villages the schools and churches and many cottages are filled with wounded Frenchmen and Germans, and everything is being done to relieve their sufferings. In the stress of fighting many wounded soldiers were left from three to ten or twelve hours lying in the fields or on the roads. The ambulance equipment of modern armies appears utterly inadequate, and most of the wounded were picked up by villagers. A French aeroplane from Belfort reconnoitred the German positions behind Muelhausen. As it passed over the German works at the Isteiner Klotz there ensued a continuous firing of machine guns and rifles. The aeroplane, which had swerved downward to give its two occupants a closer and clearer view of the German position, immediately rose to a much greater altitude and escaped injury. It cruised over the German position for more than an hour, now rising, now falling, always pursued by the bullets of the enemy. This aerial reconnoissance [Transcriber: original 'reconnoisance'], part of which was carried out at an altitude as low as 1,000 feet, was undertaken at terrible risk, but in this case the aeroplane escaped all injury and returned in the direction of Belfort, doubtless with all the information it had set out to collect.