“Another street fight in the little town of Saar. To the noise of the battle-cries and the shots is joined the crashing of timber and the falling of walls. A shell burst in one of the houses, and the pressure of the air, caused by its explosion, was so powerful that several soldiers were wounded by the ruins of the house which were borne along by the air. A window flew over my head with the window-sash still in it. The chimney-stack tumbled down, the plaster crumbled into dust and filled the air with a stifling cloud that stung one’s eyes. From one lane to another (how the hoofs rang on the jagged pavements) the fight wound on, and reached the market-place. In the middle of the square stands a high pillar of the Virgin. The Mother of God holds her child in one arm and stretches the other out in blessing. Here the fight was prolonged--man to man. They were hacking at me, I was laying about me on all sides. Whether I hit one or more of them I know not: in such moments one does not retain much perception. Still two cases are photographed on my soul, and I fear that the market-place at Saar will remain always burned into my memory. A Prussian dragoon, strong as Goliath, tore one of our officers (a pretty, dandified lieutenant--how many girls are perhaps mad after him) out of his saddle, and split his skull at the feet of the Virgin’s pillar. The gentle saint looked on unmoved. Another of the enemy’s dragoons--a Goliath too--seized, just before me almost, my right-hand man, and bent him backwards in his saddle so powerfully that he broke his back--I myself heard it crack. To this also the Madonna gave her stony blessing.”
“From a height to-day the field-glass of the staff officer commanded once more a scene rich in changes. There was, for instance, the collapse of a bridge as a train of waggons was moving across it. Did the latter contain wounded? I do not know. I could not ascertain. I only saw that the whole train--waggons, horses, and men--sank into the deep and rushing stream and there disappeared. The event was a ‘fortunate’ one, since the train of waggons belonged to the ‘blacks’. In the game now being played I designate ‘us’ as the white side. The bridge did not collapse by accident; the whites, knowing that their adversaries had to cross it, had sawn through the pillars--a dexterous stroke that.