I was extremely impressed on meeting Count Apponyi. I had anticipated something unusual, but he was quite beyond my expectations. He is about six feet three inches tall, has a splendidly erect carriage, and is a most impressively handsome man. He has a broad, well-shaped forehead sloping back steeply, splendid blue-gray eyes, the biggest, thinnest nose in the world, enormous nostrils, a strong, sensitive mouth, and a grayish, square-cut beard. The "grand old man of Hungary" looked up to his title. He has been a member of the Hungarian Parliament for forty-two years and has several times held ministerial portfolios.... He has twice been in America. He has several times visited ex-President Roosevelt at the White House and at Sagamore Hill, and the Colonel has been a guest here at Eberhard.... At luncheon there were as guests the Count and Countess Karolyi Hunyadi and two of their sons, and the Countess Herberstein, whose husband is a general in the army. _Sunday, January 10th._ I had the honor of a very interesting walk and talk with Count Apponyi this morning. Among other things he said: "I sometimes let my younger daughter (aged 12) play with the children of the peasants on the place. It gives her an understanding of life, and besides, there is no one of her own age and rank in this part of the country." This for a Hungarian nobleman is an extremely democratic remark. (And so this American Attaché continues to write in his notebook the impressions which he received on his official journeys through the war-ridden countries, which were so soon to become the enemies of his own country. His diary is one of the most interesting records of the war.) FOOTNOTE: [5] All numerals relate to stories herein told--not to chapters in the book. 'NEATH VERDUN--BEHIND THE CROWN PRINCE'S ARMY _By Lieutenant Maurice Genevoix--Translated by H. Grahame Richards_ This extraordinary narrative by a young Lieutenant in the French Army gives the most vivid impression that has been recorded of the Great War. The author was a student at the Ecole Normale, Paris, at the outbreak of the War. He received his baptism of fire in August, 1914--and what a baptism it was! It has been truly said by critics that his narrative is one which will be read and reread and handed on to posterity. He lays bare the soul of the War. Under his magic touch, we stand at Verdun; we see the army at "The Crossing of the Meuse"; we stay with them through "The Days of the Marne"; we march with them "Behind the Crown Prince's Army"; we fight with them "In the Woods." We here reprint portions of his narrative by permission of his American publishers, _Frederick A. Stokes Company_. [6] I--STORY OF THE LIEUTENANT AT VERDUN