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Cobb, Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury), 1876-1944

"Paths of Glory Impressions of War Written at and Near the Front"


Out of a total force of forty thousand men he lost eight thousand and
more in killed and wounded, but he saved the German Army from being
split asunder between its shoulder-blades. The enemy in proportion lost
even more than he did, he thought. The General had no English; he told
us all this in German, Von Theobald standing handily by to translate for
him when our own scanty acquaintance with the language left us puzzled.
"We punished them well and they punished us well," he added. "We
captured a group of thirty-one Scotchmen--all who were left out of a
battalion of six hundred and fifty, and there was no commissioned
officer left of that battalion. A sergeant surrendered them to my men.
They fight very well against us--the Scotch."
Since then the groundswell of battle had swept forward, then backward,
until now, as chance would have it, General von Zwehl once more had his
headquarters on the identical spot where he had them four weeks before
during his struggle to keep the German center from being pierced.


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