III
THE HARVEST OF THE FUTURE
Vaux is lost, for the time being, but Vaux will be regained, and the battle of Verdun is being won day by day. Day by day the meaning of the Verdun battle grows clearer. The infantryman who only knows his trench mates is an atom of a vast army distributed over all the fronts: his blood and sweat will mingle in history with the blood and sweat of his unknown and remote brothers. A scrap of disputed territory, which seems to the men involved an end in itself, is really nothing but a point in the vast shifting front where the two great forces of the world are at grips.
On June 12, five days after the capture of the fort, the Commander-in-Chief informs the Verdun troops of the Russian victories in Bukovina and Galicia, through the following Army order:
“The plan matured by the councils of the coalition is now in full course of being carried out.
“Soldiers of Verdun, it is to your heroic resistance that this consummation is due. It is this resistance that was the essential condition, and it is on this resistance that our coming victories depend; for it was this resistance that has created over the whole theatre of the European war a situation that will soon bring about the final triumph of our cause.”
The enemy is now held, and will have to submit to our laws and accept our manœuvres.
On March 10 the enemy climbs the northern slopes of Fort Vaux. He is now only two or three hundred yards off the counterscarp. To cross those two or three hundred yards will take him three months. Three months of superhuman exertions, of ceaseless attacks, of an inconceivable outlay of munitions and incredible losses among her young men, the flower of the nation. Three months, as if the war had no other object than this.
And during those three months the coalition finishes concerting, preparing, and carrying out its plans.
Fighting takes place in front of the fort, above and within it, from June 2 to 7. On the 4th, the first Russian offensive is launched south of the Pripet. It at once forces Austria to abandon its own offensive against the Trentino.
There is fighting in front of Verdun from February 21, and fighting goes on there during June and July. The Italian offensive on the Trentino opens on June 25, while that on the Isonzo begins during the early days of August. The Franco-British offensive on the Somme starts on July 1, and the central Russian offensive on July 3.
“Soldiers of Verdun, it is to your heroic resistance that this consummation is due....”
In War and Peace, Prince Bagration, in the course of a battle, hears bad news, but his coolness astonishes and reassures the aides-de-camp who bring it. He has an unswerving confidence in Russia’s future. A temporary set-back cannot make him any less certain of the final triumph.
“Merely at the sight of him, those who approached him with anxious looks began to recover their calm....”
This gives us a clue to the comforting words heard at Verdun in March, when the fort was swept by the storm for the first time:
“You need feel no uneasiness.”
For the future is taking shape.
The fort played its part before the inviolate citadel of Verdun. And while it was keeping the enemy in check, the storm-clouds were gathering elsewhere, some day to burst and humble the German might in the dust.
Hapless fort of Vaux, a stronghold reduced to ashes, a marvel of endurance, you who pulsated like a human heart, the whole world had its eyes riveted on you for the space of a few days. The whole world was not in error when it ascribed to you that significance which your courage enhanced. You were minister to plans whose full tenor you did not know, and to-day you play your part in the operations that are unfolding themselves and will continue to unfold themselves.
Land that has been overrun by the lava of volcanoes shows an unparalleled fertility when the lava has passed. Upon your tortured soil a harvest of victories will spring up, and from your defence will gush forth a fresh and inexhaustible fount of French heroism....
THE END
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