Saluting the heroes who have fallen in the fighting of the last few days, my thoughts turn toward you, the victors in the next battle. Forward, soldiers, for France! FRANCHET D'ESPEREY, General Commanding the Fifth Army. Montmirail, Sept. 9, 1914. The Germans are a formidable enemy, well trained, long prepared, and brave. Their soldiers are carrying on the contest with skill and valor. Nevertheless they are fighting to win anyhow, regardless of all the rules of fair play, and there is evidence that they do not hesitate at anything in order to gain victory. A large number of the tales of their misbehaviors are exaggeration and some of the stringent precautions they have taken to guard themselves against the inhabitants of the areas traversed are possibly justifiable measures of war. But, at the same time, it has been definitely established that they have committed atrocities on many occasions and they have been guilty of brutal conduct. So many letters and statements of our wounded soldiers have been published in our newspapers that the following epistle from a German soldier of the Seventy-fourth Infantry Regiment, Tenth Corps, to his wife may also be of interest: "My Dear Wife: I have just been living through days that defy imagination. I should never have thought that men could stand it. Not a second has passed but my life has been in danger, and yet not a hair of my head has been hurt. "It was horrible! It was ghastly! but I have been saved for you and for our happiness, and I take heart again, although I am still terribly unnerved. God grant that I may see you again soon, and that this horror may soon be over. "None of us can do any more; human strength is at an end. I will try to tell you about it. On the 5th of September the enemy were reported to be taking up a position near St. Prix, southeast of Paris. "The Tenth Corps, which had made an astonishingly rapid advance, of course, was attacked on Sunday. Steep slopes led up to the heights, which were held in considerable force. "With our weak detachments of the Seventy-fourth and Ninety-first regiments we reached the crest and came under a terrible artillery fire that mowed us down. However, we entered St. Prix. Hardly had we done so than we were met with shell fire and a violent fusillade from the enemy's infantry. "Our Colonel was badly wounded--he is the third we have had. Fourteen men were killed around me. We got away in a lull without being hit. "The 7th, 8th, and 9th of September we were constantly under shell and shrapnel fire and suffered terrible losses. I was in a house which was hit several times. The fear of death, of agony, which is in every man's heart, and naturally so, is a terrible feeling. "How often I have thought of you, my darling, and what I suffered in that terrifying battle, which extended along a front of many miles near Montmirail, you cannot possibly imagine.