text:  Valenciennes ought to have been stormed within the first five minutes after we could have cut down those poplars for scaling ladders " and he pointed to the tapering tops of the large plantations lining the banks of the Scheldt; "but we have been quarreling over our portfolios while the French have been gathering every rambling soldier within a hundred miles; and now we shall have a desperate struggle to take possession of those lines and probably a long siege as finale to the operation