From Tuesday in last week to Tuesday in this week
the battle raged without ceasing. On Saturday last it reached its crisis. During that day it is not too much to say that the fate of the world hung in the balance. If the French line had been sent reeling back in ruin, or if the Germans had broken the dyke so completely that they could pour through their angry flood, the French Army might have sustained a disaster of the first magnitude. It is no doubt perfectly true to say that the capture of Verdun would not in itself have mattered. It would not. But if its capture, as was quite possible, owing to the fierceness of the French resistance, had resulted, not in the mere falling 'back of the French Army, but in its virtual destruction—always a danger in the case of an advance freely met by counter-attacks —the situation would have been full of periL But the French Army dared all and won all. It did not find safety in Fabian tactics, or in being content to let the Germans lose men. It deliberately and consciously gave ground at first, but when it reached certain previously selected posts it held them and counter-attacked for all it was worth.
