The Germans announced
[Footnote: On February 26, 1916. Pierrefeu, _G. Q. G._, pp. 133
_et seq_.] that on the previous afternoon they had taken Fort
Douaumont by assault. At French headquarters in Chantilly no one
could understand this news. For on the morning of the twenty-fifth,
after the engagement of the XXth corps, the battle had taken a turn
for the better. Reports from the front said nothing about Douaumont.
But inquiry showed that the German report was true, though no one as
yet knew how the fort had been taken. In the meantime, the German
communiqu? was being flashed around the world, and the French had to
say something. So headquarters explained. "In the midst of total
ignorance at Chantilly about the way the attack had taken place, we
imagined, in the evening communiqu? of the 26th, a plan of the attack
which certainly had a thousand to one chance of being true." The
communiqu? of this imaginary battle read:
"A bitter struggle is taking place around Fort de Douaumont which is
an advanced post of the old defensive organization of Verdun. The
position taken this morning by the enemy, _after several
unsuccessful assaults that cost him very heavy losses_, has been
reached again and passed by our troops whom the enemy has not been
able to drive back." [Footnote: This is my own translation: the
English translation from London published in the New York Times of
Sunday, Feb.
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