Battle-fields of the Marne, 1914 - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1919 Excerpt: ...aged 78, taken away with only slippers on their feet, were the first to fall from exhaustion; they were shot point-blank. Soon after, Mr. Vapaille suffered the same fate. The next day Mr. Terre, an invalid, fell and was killed with revolver shots; Mr. Croix and Mr. Llevin stumbled in their turn and were also shot. All three were from 58 to 64 years of age. Finally, Mr. Mesnil, aged 67, utterly exhausted, gave in; his skull was smashed in with blows from the butt-end of a rifle. The other hostages, better able to endure, held on as far as Chauny and were sent to Germany by rail. They were repatriated five months later. After hairing traversed Var-reddex and before rerrosaing the canal, a tree will be noticed on the left of the road (the 38th on the way out) which has been pierced by a 75 shell as by a punching-press. Tree pierced by a 75 Shell Forty yards past the canal, on the right, are seen several paths which scale the heights. We climb the one on the right up to the summit, where the above panorama was taken, giving a view of the Varreddes hollow in the opposite direction to that of Panorama E (p. 126-127). Germigny, seen on the right-of the photograph, is known through having been Bossuet's summer residence. The Germans had a heavy battery there which bombarded Meaux in the early days of September. On the 8th they recrossed the Marne, blowing up the bridge behind them. The appearance of a French reconnoitering party composed of a sergeantmajor and nine men had sufficed to cause the evacuation of the position, which, with the river behind it, seemed a dangerous one. These ten heroes were killed in the course of the battle and buried at Germigny. On the. 9th the Marne was crossed on a pontoon bridge built under fire by British engineers, whose heroic ten...