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

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

I
wonder how men managed to wage war in the days before the automobile.
Two waiting cars received our party and our guides and our drivers, and
we went corkscrewing down the hill, traversing crooked ways that were
astonishingly full of German soldiers and astonishingly free of French
townspeople. Either the citizens kept to their closed-up houses or,
having run away at the coming of the enemy, they had not yet dared to
return, although so far as I might tell there was no danger of their
being mistreated by the gray-backs. Reaching the plain which is below
the city we streaked westward, our destination being the field wireless
station.
Nothing happened on the way except that we overtook a file of slightly
wounded prisoners who, having been treated at the front, were now bound
for a prison in a convent yard, where they would stay until a train
carried them off to Munster or Dusseldorf for confinement until the
end of the war. I counted them.--two English Tommies, two French
officers, one lone Belgian--how he got that far down into France nobody
could guess--and twenty-eight French cannoneers and infantrymen,
including some North Africans.


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