There was no longer either a city or a suburb to defend, for both were
heaps of rubbish and cinders. The parapets of the works, dried in the
heats of summer and split in huge fragments by the shot, were crumbling
into the ditches. The interior space was honeycombed with holes made by
the shells. Gabions and sandbags could not be procured to repair the
embrasures, which remained in ruins. Many of the dismounted guns could
no longer be replaced, not because there were not plenty in the
arsenals, but because to mount them by night, under the deadly fire of
the mortars, entailed such frightful sacrifices of men.
The defenders of the works were packed in caves under the parapets; the
gunners lay dead in heaps on the batteries; the wounded could not be
removed by day, because the communications with the rear were now
searched throughout by the fire of the allies, and so lay where they
fell, in torment in the sun beside the more fortunate slain. On landing,
the Prince had passed the hospitals, full to overflowing, and the
ambulances with the wounded crowding what had been the squares.
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