On July 18 General Foch asked and obtained a leave of absence for fifteen days, so that he might join the family group gathered at his home near Morlaix in Brittany.  His two sons-in-law, Captain Fournier and Captain Becourt, also obtained leave.  The former was attached to the general army staff at Paris, and was granted seventeen days.  The latter was in command of a company of the Twenty-sixth battalion of Foot Chasseurs at Pont-a-Mousson.  He was given twenty-five days’ leave.  The wives and children of both were at Morlaix with Madame Foch.

So little expectation of immediate war had France on July 18 that she granted a fortnight’s absence to the commander of those troops which were expected to bear the first shock of German aggression when it came.

But I happen to know of a French family reunion held at Nancy on July 14 and the days following, which was incomplete.  One of the women of this family was married to a German official at Metz whose job it was to be caretaker for three thousand locomotives belonging to the imperial government and kept at Metz for “emergencies.”  On July 12 (as it afterwards transpired) he was ordered to have fires lighted and steam got up in those three thousand engines, and to keep them, night and day, ready for use at a moment’s notice.

Those smoking iron horses in Metz are a small sample of what was going on all over Germany while France’s frontier-defenders were being given permission to visit Brittany.

But for that matter German war-preparations were going on much nearer to Nancy than in Metz, while Foch was playing with his grandchildren at Morlaix.

Beginning about July 21 and ending about the 25th, twelve thousand Germans left Nancy for “points east,” and six thousand others left the remainder of French Lorraine.

The pretexts they gave were various—­vacations, urgent business matters, “cures” at German watering places.  They all knew, when they left, that Germany was mobilizing for attack upon France.  They had known it for some time before they left.

Since the beginning of July they had been working in Nancy to aid the German attack.  They had visited the principal buildings, public and private, and especially the highest ones, with plans for the installation of wireless at the modest price of $34.  “It is so interesting,” they said, “to get the exact time, every day, from the Eiffel Tower!”

They had also some amazingly inexpensive contrivances for heating houses, or regulating the heating already installed, or for home refrigeration—­things which took them into cellars in Nancy—­and before they left to join their regiments they were exceedingly busy demonstrating those things.

They were all gone when General Foch was recalled, on July 26.

On July 30 German under-officers crossed the frontier.

On August 3 Uhlans and infantrymen on motorcycles were shooting and pillaging on the French side of the border, although it was not until 6:45 P.M. that day that Germany declared war on France.