Please identify the author of this passage about WWI

Cafe Society
1

One of the photo-illustrated history books I made a beeline for in my elementary school library described the German army marching through the streets of Brussels in 1914 as (to the best of my recollection) “an endless sea of ghostly grey uniforms” with “the hobnails of their boots making sparks at night.as they struck the cobblestones.”

This was taken from an eyewitness account, presumably written by a foreign correspondent from a neutral country (maybe the USA?). It’s too early for William L Shirer; any idea who it might be?

2

Richard Harding Davis maybe?

3

Is this it?

http://p12cdn4static.sharpschool.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_520401/File/Departments/Curriculum%20&%20Instruction/ELA/Non-Fiction%20Texts/The%20German%20Army%20Marches%20through%20Brussels.pdf

4

My Google search says it’s from Monash’s Masterpiece: The battle of Le Hamel and the 93 minutes that changed the world by Peter Fitzsimmons.

5

Holy crap, that was fast! That is indeed the text, though the book I read had only a small part of it.

I took a look at the Fitzsimmons link; I suspect he was quoting from Davis’s report.

Thanks to all of you! Now if I can only remember the name of the book I read and the series it was from…

6

Do Not Taunt The Dope!

7

Here is a longer (and, I presume, complete) text:

http://www.columbia.edu/~jef1/brussels.html

8

Hey, I had an ‘impossible’ song ID, and The Dope came through.

9

That is my point. Throw it down, it’s DONE BABY!