FOR MERIT
Reading edition
If, as the artist suggests, and the plainest reading of the facts of the fruitless Verdun assault seems to confirm, lives of men were squandered in a reckless attempt to save the princeling's face (which was, in fact, beyond saving), then does he richly deserve the grim decoration with which in the name of infamy he is here invested—the Order of Butchery, with knives. And you may view the crosses upon the pathetic mounds before Verdun as so many entries in the Recording Angel's ledger.
Joseph Thorp.
