THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. 81 
we received the news of the surrender, and hence we viewed 
war's hideous desolation in all its recentness. However, 
they say you cannot be the first Englishman anywhere, and 
sure enough the “ 77mes” correspondent was at Longwy 
before us. 
A German artillery officer took us round the fortifications, 
and really it was wonderful to see the effect of modern 
missiles from large mortars. Nothing gave mea better idea 
of the force with which they came than the mangled trees* 
on the ramparts. They were most dangerous things to have 
there. I could quite believe that the Frenchmen dare not 
show themselves near them for the splinters. A jagged 
splinter wound is more intractable than a shot wound. 
During the nine days’ rain of bombshells, the inhabitants, 
to the number of 400, took refuge in the casemates. On 
visiting these, I found them to be low arched passages under 
the fortifications. Dreadful places, with scarcely any venti- 
lation. I cannot think how so many people herded into 
them. Even here they were not safe, for in spite of being 
warranted bomb-proof, I saw one place where the massive 
roof had been broken. Hundreds of beds in rows, which 
the people had slept in, were still there, and some sick and 
wounded were not yet removed. For nine days they had 
endured this black hole, amid the noise and din of 30,000 
bursting bomb shells. Yet such good care did the French 
soldiers take of themselves, that by all this extraordinary 
burning of powder, only a very few were killed of the 1,800 
who formed the garrison of Longwy. On the German side 
the destruction of life was equally small; only nine men 
killed and twenty wounded. I should think there are very 
few instances on record of a fortified town being besieged 
and captured with so little loss. Before they began to 
bombard, the Germans generously allowed all the women 
‘® At another place I saw some good-sized timbers cut clean in two. 
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