Expectation of the great battle believed to be forthcoming to the north
of Liege dominates the situation here.

I breakfasted to-day at the restaurant Paillard with M. Max-Lyon and M.
Arthur Meyer, manager of the _Gaulois_. Mlle. Zinia Brozia, of the
Opera Comique, who remains in Paris, was also of our party. All sorts of
war rumors were current, but as M. Messimy, the minister of war, has
given to M. Arthur Meyer the assurance that while the news given out
"might not be _all_ the news, it would nevertheless be invariably
_true news_," confidence in the official communications to the
press, which are the only authentic source of war news, is unshaken. The
French Ministry of War, in its official _communique_ of the
military situation, issued at 11.30 this evening, states that the French
troops are in contact with the enemy along almost the entire front. The
only fighting that has taken place, however, has been engagements
between the outposts, in which the French soldiers everywhere showed
irresistible courage and ardor.

A Uhlan who was captured near Liege on Saturday was found to be the
bearer of a map marked with the proposed marches of the German army.
According to this map, the Germans were to be in Brussels on August 3
and at Lille on August 5.




_Wednesday, August 12._


Eleventh day of mobilization. Hot weather, with light northerly breeze.