Part 4

Some may imagine that the Belgian troops must have had their readiness to attack blunted, and their desire to leap over the entanglements and hurl themselves on the enemy weakened, by their long immobility in the same trenches, by the never-ending construction of defensive works, by the interminable residence in the same monotonous environment.

But they are wrong. Their sadly mistaken conclusions would soon be corrected could they but see how eagerly our soldiers contend for the honour of taking part in those adventurous patrols in No Man's Land and in the risky reconnaissances towards the German lines. If 10 volunteers be called for, a hundred offer themselves. Hardly a night passes without some expeditions of this kind being set on foot. Then are fought in the darkness weird and deadly combats, wherein our men display magnificent courage and wonderful dash.

Neither bad weather nor suffering can quench their desire to conquer and their hot eagerness to fling themselves upon the enemy and hunt him out of the country which he has remorselessly despoiled. As the soldiers of justice and right, they wish to be--and will be--the soldiers also of deliverance and liberty. They know that their hour is coming and that they cannot choose it; but they are ready to throw themselves heart and soul into the thick of the fray when they get the impatiently awaited signal.

Meanwhile they are content simply to do their hard duty in what remains of a free country--a tiny corner of Belgium where the eye sees nothing but a vast battlefield with its ruins; its camps, bubbling with active life; its hospitals, homes of suffering; its cemeteries, too, where rest those who died for their fatherland.

_Printed in Great Britain by Alabaster, Passmore & Sons, Ltd., London and Maidstone._

FOOTNOTES:

[A] See _Les Batailles de la Marne_ (_Die Schlachten an der Marne_), by An Officer of the German General Staff. Translated from the German by Th. Buyse. Van OEst & Cie, Paris, 1917.

[B] Going into detail, we may point out that 60 kilometres of fire and communication trenches are included in the area of the front line organised defensively _for a single division occupying but a very narrow sector_.

[C] For information on this subject, consult _Les Établissements d'artillerie belges pendant la guerre_, by Captain Willy Breton. Berger-Levrault, Paris and Nancy, 1917.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Belgian Front, by Captain Willy Breton