Exactly, as it happens, a year ago, from the day on which this chapter is being written, I ended an article on a visit to the front trenches at Celles in the Vosges with these words: “The best of it all was just the one thing that it is most difficult to describe—the wonderful temper of the French troops that we passed, and sometimes talked to, on the road. In spite of cold and hardships and wounds and the constant nearness of death, these men at the front had a spirit of cheerful endurance and fearlessness that I believe nothing can conquer. If it comes to sitting in the trenches for a year looking at the German trenches fifty yards away they will sit the Germans out.” The year I spoke of has gone, and they have not sat the Germans out—yet. But they are still sitting, and before November 21st comes again—well, we shall see. Three months before that visit to the Vosges, on August 21st, 1914, there were no trenches to sit in, except the pathetic kind of enlarged rabbit-scrapes that the men used to scoop out how and when they could. But they had not much time for digging. The enemy were hard on their heels. As soon as they knew that the French troops which had fought at Morhange were retreating, followed inevitably by those which lined the frontier of the Vosges, from the Donon down to the Ballon d’Alsace, they hurried additional regiments across the Rhine as quickly as they could, and very soon the force available for the attack amounted, it is believed, to seven army corps, or something over 300,000 men. General Dubail’s army, already reduced in size by the numerous levies made on it for the commands in the north, had also been obliged to extend its left wing in the direction of Nancy, and its centre, doubly weakened by these two causes, gave way to a certain extent, under the heavy pressure brought to bear upon it, and allowed the Germans to pour into France by Saales, Sainte Marie aux Mines, and the Bonhomme. Those who crossed the Col de Saales drove the French back as far as Ramberviller, twenty-five miles due west of the pass, and occupied Provenchères, Senones, Raon l’Etape, and St. Dié, while those who advanced by the two southern passes occupied St. Léonard, a few miles south of St. Dié, and threatened an attack on Epinal by the valley of Rouges-Eaux and the Col de la Chipotte. That was the position—the very alarming position—a day or two after the battle of Morhange. The Col de Donon had been abandoned on the 21st, and other German troops had advanced by Badonviller and Baccarat as far as Gerbéviller and Lunéville, while a still larger army had crossed the Seille and the frontier by the Château-Salins road, and arrived nearly within striking distance of Nancy. The German front extended almost in a straight line north-west and south-east from Etain past Pont-à-Mousson, Champenoux, Lunéville, Gerbéviller, St. Benoit, (close to Ramberviller) and the valley of the Rouges-Eaux (just west of St. Dié) to the Col de Bonhomme.