Heavy and hideous odors arose from the four hundred miles of unwashed armies.

Men lived amid disease, dirt and death.

Civilization built up slowly through painful centuries had come to a sudden stop, and once more they were savages in caves seeking to destroy one another.
This, at least, was the external aspect of it, but the flower of civilization was still sound at the stem.

When the storm was over it would grow and bloom again amid the wreckage.

French and Germans, in the intervals of battle, were often friendly with each other.