Zweibund — the Dual Alliance — Germany and Austria-Hungary united, were the core of the Central Powers, and here join hands. The bars of Germany's flag border the top left, and those of the Habsburg Austrian Empire and ruling house the bottom right.

Schulter an Schulter

Untrennbar vereint

in Freud und in Leid!'



Shoulder to shoulder

Inseparably united

in joy and in sorrow!

Other views: Larger, Back

Sunday, February 28, 1915

"The cannon were booming without a pause, and seemingly so near that it was bewildering to look out across empty fields at a hillside that seemed like any other. But luckily somebody had a field-glass, and with its help, a little corner of the battle of Vauquois was suddenly brought up close to us — the rush of French infantry up the slopes, the feathery drift of French gun-smoke lower down, and, high up, on the wooded crest along the sky, the red lightnings and white puffs of the German artillery. Rap, rap, rap, went the answering guns, as the troops swept up and disappeared into the fire-tongued wood; and we stood there dumbfounded at the accident of having stumbled on this visible episode of the great subterranean struggle.

. . . the attack we looked on at from the garden at Clermont, on Sunday, February 28th [1915], carried the victorious French troops to the top of the ridge, and made them masters of a part of the village. Driven from it again that night, they were to retake it after a five days' struggle of exceptional violence and prodigal heroism, and are now securely established there in a position described as 'of vital importance to the operations.'"

Quotation Context

Excerpts from Edith Wharton's 1915 account of her travels behind the French lines. The village of Vauquois was west of Verdun in the Argonne Forest, and of the same sandstone as the forest. The French captured the south side of the Butte de Vauquois in the series of attacks Wharton describes. They soon began tunneling into the sandstone and setting mines beneath the Germans, who responded with their own tunnels. By September, 1918, the two sides had dug tunnels totaling nearly 25 miles, and had exploded 531 mines. [Thanks to woostergeologists.scotblogs.wooster.edu/2010/08/16/battle-of-the-mines-vauquois-1915-1918/.]

Source

Fighting France by Edith Wharton, pp. 64, 66, copyright © 1915, by Charles Scribner's Sons, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1915

Tags

Battle of Vauquois, 1915-02-28, 1915, February, field artillery