I shall
never forget him as he stood at the gate, leaning on his wheel,
describing how the Germans crossed the Meuse--a feat which cost them so
dearly that only their superior number made a victory out of a disaster.
"I suppose," he said, "that in the history of the war it will stand as a
success--at any rate, they came across, which was what they wanted. We
could only have stopped them, if at all, by an awful sacrifice of life.
Joffre is not doing that. If the Germans want to fling away their men
by the tens of thousands--let them. In the end we gain by it. We can
rebuild a country; we cannot so easily re-create a race. We mowed them
down like a field of wheat, by the tens of thousands, and tens of
thousands sprang into the gaps. They advanced shoulder to shoulder.
Our guns could not miss them, but they were too many for us. If you had
seen that crossing I imagine it would have looked to you like a disaster
for Germany. It was so awful that it became comic. I remember one
point where a bridge was mined. We let the first divisions of artillery
and cavalry come right across on to our guns--they were literally
destroyed.
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