Word: hochwalder
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...pass. Of this explosive avalanche 2,000 projectiles were of the highest power. To Verdun and other War-famed forts now reconstructed and equipped with guns that can easily fire into German territory, France has added two more monsters, Hackenberg defending the great industrial city of Metz, and Hochwald near the Rhine within easy shooting distance of Baden. Hackenberg is a marvel of underground mechanics, equivalent to ten dreadnaughts buried in a mountain, connected by poison-gas-tight tunnels and served by miles of subterranean railways on which projectiles and even guns can be rushed from point to point. Hochwald...
Aside from Verdun, Hackenberg and Hochwald, the entire Sarre-Rhine frontier of France is studded every kilometre (nearly five-eighths of a mile) with "pillboxes" and groups of pillboxes, each one a small fort 30 ft. by 36 ft. and rooted 60 ft. deep in earth so that poilus in the lower chamber can rest in comfort. "Comfort," as Marshal Pétain has said, "is of utmost strategic importance. The combative efficiency of the soldier is at least doubled when he can recuperate in comfort." Ergo, nearly every pillbox is equipped with electric lights, electric stove, a well, beds...
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