OCR Text |
Show DESPERATE STAND MADE DVJRENCH Nancy, Behind the French Lines. Sept. 27.- In this comer of Franc war correspondents are still almost entirely out of the fighting, but there arc other things besides the central engagements. For miles along the chief highways between Nancy and h- frontkr oast and north the battle has raged backward and forward Everywhere there are trenches, covered cov-ered and uncovered 'I he German and French fighting has been so complicated com-plicated and the positions changed so Often that it is practically impossible im-possible to fH with any exactness by what troops they were occupied Only the general position is clear, nrh the general destruction remains Proken telegraph poles. hanginc wires, hop gardens scorched and shat lered by sheets of fire blackened corn stalks rotting where they stand, plows and farm carts twisted and smashed festering bodies, dead horses in hideously ungainly attitudes, capecoats, saddles, haversacks, socks, : hiits all kinds of things that men made and used and wore, all manner of rubbish that once had form and bcatu together make up a horrib:e tragedy of desolation, decay, of unutterable unut-terable noise and furv and suffering, I death and the dead, the pitiable little heaps of clothes, gra or red and blue, that once were men that helped make all this desolation. Its victims, nearly all of them, have been buried, hidden away in the shelter of the brown old earth. Taken by way of contrast, the story of the splendid stand at Cerceuil by the French chasseurs-a-pied makes splendid reading Eight hundred of them were surrounded by the Germans Ger-mans and called upon to surrender With one voice they refused. The order was given to fire upon thorn by volle s After each volley the curvivors shouted "Viva la France " Finally, by some unheard of effort-250 effort-250 of those who were left managed to get the tipper hand of the enemy They retook the position, leaving more- than 1U00 dead Germans on the field. |