The Chief Rabbi of the Dantzic Jews had taken a new house, and his flock determined to stock his wine-butt for him. On a stated evening his friends went down one after another into the Rabbi’s cellar, and emptied each his bottle into the big vat. When the Rabbi came next day to draw off his dinner wine he found the cask was full of pure water. Each Jew had said to himself that one bottle of water could never be noticed in so great a quantity of wine, and so the poor Rabbi had not got a drop of wine in his butt. Now, it was just the same with the French army. One soldier said to himself that it would not matter a copper if he sneaked away; but the bother was that one and all took the same line of reasoning, and the result was that nobody was left to look the enemy in the face. In order to bring about the fall of Metz a little sooner, the Prussians drove out all the peasants from the neighbouring villages, and forced them down to Metz. The Mayor of Metz ordered them back; then the Prussians fired over their heads, and tried to frighten them down again. Meanwhile, the women and children were worn out and hungry, and sat down to cry and wish for death. These are some of the glories of war. Sometimes, when they returned to their village home after a week’s absence, they found a remarkable change. They had left a pretty villa, trim gardens, and tiny pond and summer-house. This is what an Englishman saw one day: “I came on a little group, the extreme pathos of which made my heart swell. It was a family, and they sat in front of what had once been their home. That home was now roofless. The stones of the walls were all that was left. The garden was a wreck, and the whole scene was concentrated desolation. The husband leaned against the wall, his arms folded, his head on his chest. The wife sat on the wet ground, weeping over the babe at her breast. Two elder children stared around them with wonder and unconcern--too young to realize their misfortune. No home, no food, a waggon and a field with four graves in it--a sight enough to melt the hardest heart.” But there were so many similar scenes, and some much more terrible to witness. On the 29th of October, in torrents of rain, the French soldiers went out of Metz, casting down their rifles and swords in heaps at the gate, many glad enough to become prisoners of war and have a full stomach. The Germans came in very cautiously, examining fort and bastion and bridge, to prevent any mine explosions, and in a few hours “Metz la Pucelle” had become a German city. Marshal Bazaine, who had done so little to help them, was the object of every citizen’s curses. The women pelted him with mud and called him “Coward!” as he set off for the Prussian headquarters. From “The Siege of Metz,” by Mr. G. T. Robinson, by kind permission of Messrs. Bradbury and Evans. CHAPTER XX PLEVNA (1877)