Chapter VIII: Front Matter (8)

The training camp where we had prepared for the front after our arrival in France had been purchased by the United States from the French, and had been in use since the beginning of the war for the purpose of putting the high spots on the training of men belonging to both the heavy and light artillery. It was a spacious place; we had comfortable quarters and lots of good food. I had been on the Mexican border, so that sound of the heavy guns that were being used for training purposes did not annoy me, though to about ninety per cent. of the rest of the fellows this was a new sound, and orders were issued that cotton was to be put in the ears.

[Sidenote: The French officers are fine fellows.]

Except for the return fire, we might have been at the front, for the camp was an exact duplication of conditions under fire. Our equipment was largely French, and the officers who tutored us in modern warfare were all French--and as fine a bunch of fellows as ever lived.

[Sidenote: Buying a village for a target.]

One of the exciting incidents of the Camp was the day that news arrived that the American government had purchased a small village just beyond the Camp (France is honeycombed with small villages,--it is almost impossible to walk a mile without passing through a village) and that it was to be used as a target for the American boys.

We practiced in turn, a battery going out for a few hours' work, and then returning. Both light and heavy Artillery used the village as a target, and it was not long before there was only a heap of rubbish to tell where there had once been houses.

[Sidenote: The instructors praise American marksmanship.]

One of the things that the American fellows felt proud of was the fact that they were constantly being praised by their French instructors because of their very superior marksmanship. Several men told me that the American troopers learned in two weeks' time as much of the craftsmanship of war as the French learned in three months. As the story was on themselves, I guess it must be true.

[Sidenote: Good care close to the firing line.]

[Sidenote: A question of high prices.]

We worked hard in camp, but the fellows liked it. We had good food, lots of fresh vegetables, and meat. It is a fact that the closer you get to the firing line the better care you get. There was plenty of recreation through the Y.M.C.A. activities, but we did not have many furloughs. Remember that at the time I am writing of, the American boys were new in France. One of the reasons for the lack of furloughs was that in many of the towns near the great camps that were set apart for the Americans the merchants had decided that it was harvest time, and prices had gone very high. General Pershing himself ordered that no member of the American force should buy anything in these towns until the matter of prices was adjusted, and this was speedily done.

[Sidenote: A journey in motor trucks.]

[Sidenote: Making the new quarters sanitary.]

I had been in the training camp about a month, making a special study of telephone work as carried on between the front-line trenches and outposts regimental headquarters, and the various gun batteries of the regiment. At the end of that time I was detached from my regular battery and assigned as Signal Sergeant to work with another battery proceeding immediately to the American sector of the Front. We did not travel forward in gradual stages as is the usual custom of approaching the firing line for the first time, but made the journey as quickly as possible, in motor trucks--a never-to-be-forgotten journey. Our destination was a village between five and ten miles from the Front, where we were to be billeted, and where the American troops would spend their time while not actively in the trenches. We got there in the afternoon, and a batch of the men were detached to make the place clean and perfectly sanitary. It needed their work. The village had been used by the French soldiers for some time, and there had been no time or opportunity for repair work. With the coming of the Americans it was different. Cleanliness is a strictly enforced rule with the fellows of our fighting force, and from a standpoint of sanitation we are literally introducing soap, water and whitewash into France.

[Sidenote: The order to advance.]

Later that afternoon, when it was growing dusk, came the orders to go forward--and at nightfall I found myself walking beside the French officer across rough ground, a very occasional dull boom telling us that there was an enemy before us--but all other sounds seemed natural.

As I said before, it is impossible to accurately describe the sensations that come over a fellow when he discovers that he is on the firing line, and I welcomed the work to which I was so quickly assigned, and which we rapidly accomplished. I marveled at the precision with which I had gone to work that first night on the front, but everyone had their work to do, and did it so quickly and coolly that we had no time to think of personal feelings.

[Sidenote: An interesting day on the firing line.]

The first day on the firing line was very interesting. The battery kept up a constant fire, getting range from the map which is issued daily--as well as the given ranges, targets, etc. (which arrived over the field telephone). That night we stood ready to do any work required, but no orders came through, and I had my first experience in sleeping in a gun pit.

Our food, by the way, was brought up daily from the headquarters at the village and was prepared in rolling field kitchens.

[Sidenote: Food is good and abundant.]

As an example of the care that the fellows are getting, I might say that we were given bread and milk, fruit, excellent coffee, eggs, or possibly hash, and, of course, bread for breakfast; a heavy meal of soup, steak or some roast meat, potatoes and vegetables, coffee and sweets, came next, with a meal of canned foods for supper. All of it well cooked and mighty tasty. Believe me, Uncle Sam was taking mighty fine care of his soldier boys!

[Sidenote: The telephone system is demolished.]

The following day started as the first, but in the middle of the afternoon the telephone system of our sector was demolished by rifle and it was impossible to get into communication with either the headquarters or the trenches.

"That stops work for today!" the officer told me. "No more gun fire till we get it fixed."

I can remember asking anxiously what we could do.

"Nothing just this minute," he laughed at my eagerness, "but tonight you and I will crawl out on our bellies and find that broken wire. Then we will fix it, and unless they find us with a shell we'll crawl back."

[Sidenote: We go out to mend the wire.]

The prospect was exciting, and I waited anxiously for night. Then, armed with the necessary tools, we started to crawl along the trench containing the wires. We had no light, we could not stand upright. We went about a half mile, feeling every inch of wire for the break, and then suddenly I ran my hand along the wire that suddenly came to a point. We had found the break.

"I've got it," I called in my best whisper, but before I could receive a reply there was a noise from the German trenches.

"Star shell, star shell," my French companion called excitedly.

[Sidenote: A star shell bursts above us.]

Suddenly the shell burst above us, and it was more brilliant than day. Frightened! Say, that light is so great and the knowledge that if the Germans spot you you're a goner, makes you just lie there and forget to breathe! It does not take many seconds for a star shell to die away to a glow, but in those seconds you go right through life and back to the present. When the light was gone I lay there fairly panting for breath.

"We'll have to work quickly," came the inspiring voice at my elbow, and we did. We had not finished work before a new star shell was sent up.

[Sidenote: The repair work is finished.]

The repair work did not take many minutes, and we started back again. We were halted several times by star shells, and after the second or third time I began to reassure myself by saying that the Germans did not know I was out there, that they had nothing against me individually. Afterwards I heard one of the officers say that they were probably suspicious because of the sudden cessation of the gun fire that afternoon, and were looking for a raiding party to cross no-man's-land.

[Sidenote: The noise of the shells.]

During the time that I was at the front, it was the custom for men to spend six days at the front, then go back to the village in which they were billeted--always well beyond the firing line--and there rest for about two weeks. By the end of my third day I had become quite acclimated to the noise. One afternoon a scouting aeroplane must have reported some fancied movement of troops in a village two or three miles back of us, for the Germans started a heavy barrage which went singing over our heads. The shells went high, but just the same they made everyone uncomfortable for a few minutes. Fellows that have been on the line, however, will tell you that you don't mind the noise of shell fire--for you figure it out that the bullet that hits you is the bullet you never hear--and while that doesn't seem a very comfortable thought, you soon forget to think of danger.

[Sidenote: Shifting the gun's position.]

Perhaps the most exciting incident, and at the same time the one that sent more terror to our hearts than any other, occurred late one afternoon. It was foggy, though fog always hung over our battery--in fact, the climate of the front that has been assigned to our troops is notorious for its winter fogginess. Orders had been sent out to shift the position of our gun, and as the afternoon wore away--and the thick smoke-like pall that hung over us made it impossible to recognize the fellow standing next to you when he was half a dozen feet away--it was decided that there was no use to wait till night, but that we could shift the gun at once.

[Sidenote: A German aeroplane right overhead.]

All the crowd started to work, the new gun pit was ready, and the signal station was all moved. It was just as we got the gun into the position and were straightening it into position that a faint breeze came stealing down from the mountains. In a minute the breeze was stronger, and we could see a hundred yards away. In another minute we could see three times that distance, and at the end of the third minute we could see clear up into the heavens--and there was a German plane flying straight for us.

Did you ever stand waiting for death? I suppose not--but that was what happened to our gun crews. The plane swooped low and seemed to hang right over us. We waited, hardly daring to breathe. I saw the perspiration running from one fellow's face, and guess it was running down mine. I know that I had a most pressing desire to run--anywhere, so long as I was moving. As I was looking down I glanced at my wrist watch about every thirty seconds and lived minutes between each glance. No one spoke--it was as if we had suddenly been turned to wood. Then after fifteen minutes of observation the Hun plane circled away from us--and we had lived several lifetimes in that short time.

[Sidenote: Army trucks take us back to the village.]

It was the fog that got me--and sent me back to the United States. Two years before, coming home from drill at the armory (I was then a member of the National Guard) I fell asleep on the train and contracted a severe cold. The cold never seemed to leave me, and now, after a week of fog, after sleeping in a gun pit, I grew hoarse and developed a nasty cough. I was not really sick when I left the firing line after my six days and returned to the billet, but I felt pretty miserable. I can remember being glad when, after a several miles' walk back of the lines, we found the army trucks ready to carry us to the village where we were quartered.

[Sidenote: A month at the base hospital.]

I spent four days in the billet receiving further instruction from my French officer, and then after ten days I started back to the training camp, where I was to help in the instruction of the fellows of my division who had not as yet been under fire. By the time I reached the camp I was what might be termed all in, down and out. I went to the hospital, and when I was able I was moved in an ambulance to a U.S. Army Base hospital far removed from the firing line. I was at the base hospital a month, and spent most of the time in the sunshine trying to get rid of the heavy bronchial condition that had fastened itself to me. The hospital was full--but not with Americans. I was surrounded by fellows from all the allied nations, and had the chance to talk with them. They're a great lot, and anybody who has any doubt about whether we are going to win this war needs only a few minutes' conversation with some of the chaps that have been over there for years. You bet we're going to win--there isn't a thought of anything else but victory.

[Sidenote: Orders to go home.]

At the end of my month at the base hospital it was decided that I was not fit for the firing line. Uncle Sam is mighty good to his fellows--he does not believe in placing them under unnecessary risks, and when the doctors said that my bronchial condition was practically chronic, and the life on the firing line would only aggravate it, I got my orders to go home and take up service in a climate where there was less chance of my becoming a liability and where there was just as much work for me to do as in France, though of a different nature.

It was a disappointment, but I'm glad to think that I had those six days on the firing line, and proud to think that I was with the first batch of Americans to see service in the fight against autocracy.

Copyright, The Forum, May, 1918.

* * * * *

That portion of France in which the American army did its most active fighting is a country filled with historic and romantic associations. It is also a country of great scenic beauty. The following article describes graphically the general aspect of this portion of France.

AN AMERICAN BATTLEFIELD

RAOUL BLANCHARD

[Sidenote: A glorious battlefield.]

Terrific battles, ushering in the dawn of victories which will ensure the freedom of the world, were fought in July and August, 1918, between the Marne and Vesle rivers, from Château-Thierry to Soissons and Fismes. In this soul-stirring struggle the young American troops played a large part, and played it with heroism and success. It has occurred to us, therefore, that the American people will be glad to become acquainted with the battlefield made glorious by their sons, with the soil which will some day be a consecrated goal of pilgrimage for the entire nation.

[Sidenote: The field once the most beautiful country.]

This field of death, bristling with ruins still smouldering, was formerly, and will soon be once more, a beautiful stretch of country. Here we are in the heart of the Ile de France, and the countryside displays all the gracious charm of a typical French landscape. With its undulating plateaus, pleasant vales, broad green valleys, forests and greensward, châteaux and villas, small towns, and dear old villages thronged with souvenirs of the past, the district between the Marne and the Aisne was peculiarly representative of France--the France of the Merovingians and Capets as well as of the twentieth century.

There is no manufacturing and little commercial activity; but a skillful, varied, and persistent culture of the soil, with special attention to those most exacting of crops, the vine and vegetables, which are successfully raised only by dint of hard labor, and to the production of vast quantities of sugar-beets and cereals.

[Sidenote: The villages are built of stone.]

The villages, built of the beautiful stone of the district, have, one and all, an air of dignity and prosperity which gives animation to the landscape. The very names are among the most pleasant to the ear, and often among the most illustrious in the language. Our great men of letters, La Fontaine and Racine, Pope Urban II, who preached the First Crusade, and other statesmen and princes, all born in the province, had already made it a genuinely historic spot; and the memory of the battles fought by Napoleon at Château-Thierry and Soissons, against the invaders of 1814, has not yet faded. When they turned the enemy back from Paris, the Americans were fighting in the most truly French of all the districts of France, and their gallantry has imparted to it a new charm, a more resplendent glory.

[Sidenote: Topography from the Marne to the Vesle.]

But this attractive region does not exhibit everywhere the same features. The topography of the Ile de France is so varied that one can distinguish several families, or groups, of landscapes between the Marne and the Vesle. Let us follow them, in the order followed by the different stages of the battle.

The southern portion is the most elevated and most picturesque; it includes the shores of the Marne, from Epernay to Château-Thierry, as well as the hills and valleys to the eastward, grouped about the Ardre River in the district called the Tardenois. In the centre the battlefield embraces plateaus studded with low hills, half hidden by broad patches of forest, and cut by deep, narrow valleys--those of the Ourcq and its affluents; whence the region is known as the district of the Ourq, or the Orxois. Lastly, to the north this undulating ground gives place to a practically level plateau, a vast table-land of cultivated fields, through which flow the deep ravines of the Aisne, the Vesle, and their affluents. This is the Soissonnais.

[Sidenote: The wake of the American armies.]

From the Tardenois to the Soissonnais by way of the Orxois, let us follow in the wake of the French and American armies, in their decisively victorious advance.

[Sidenote: Valleys of stream cut deep.]

On emerging from the plains of Champagne, at Epernay, the Marne flows through the plateaus of the Ile de France as far as Paris, and the country along its banks changes its aspect. Instead of the wide valley which seems one with the immense bare plain, the stream, breaking out a path for itself through the solid mass of the plateau, has cut a gash from 500 to 2000 metres in width, which turns and winds in graceful and ever-changing curves. Thus, although its general course is from east to west, the trend of the walls of the valley constantly changes and bears toward every point of the compass in turn. Moreover, these walls, intersected by the ravines and valleys of numerous tributary streams, are cut up into capes, bastions, and deep hollows. Finally, the cliff from whose summit the plateau overlooks the valley, and whose average height is about 150 metres, at times rises steeply from the lowland, and again is broken up into terraces following the different strata of which it is composed. Thus, although the topographical elements are simple enough, they lend themselves to an ever-changing combination of forms, which gives to the landscape its great charm, and at the same time offers some formidable advantages of various kinds from a military standpoint.

[Sidenote: The placid Marne.]

[Sidenote: The Marne easy to cross.]

The bright green ribbon of the Marne winds along the valley bottom. The placid stream, about a hundred metres wide and broken here and there by islets, wanders from one bank to the other, lined by poplars and willows. On either side of its limpid waters are broad fields, whose delicate greenery frames the sparkling line of the river, which forms a by no means impassable obstacle. In the days just preceding the German offensive of July 15, American patrols constantly crossed between Château-Thierry and Mézy, and picked up prisoners and information on the northern bank. In like manner, during that offensive the attacking German troops were able without great losses to cross the Marne and attack the defenders on the southern bank. To be sure, the Allied air-men made their life a burden by keeping up an incessant bombardment of the bridges, large and small.

[Sidenote: Fierce fighting on the slopes.]

But the real obstacle which this valley offers is found in the slopes which dominate it, and it was there that the fiercest fighting took place until the day when the French and Americans, having thrown the enemy back across the river, scaled the cliffs of the right bank on his heels and dislodged him therefrom. In this neighborhood there were two sectors of terrific fighting--that of Châtillon-Dormans upstream, and that of Château-Thierry below.

[Sidenote: A wide valley with steep slopes.]

[Sidenote: The vine-growing district.]

Going upstream, the valley is quite wide: from Monvoisin to Dormans, by Château-Thierry, it measures two kilometres almost everywhere. The high cliff which overlooks it on the north, cut by a multitude of narrow valleys coming down from the table-land of the Tardenois, forms a series of buttresses which make excellent defensive positions. On the sharpest, which is a genuine peninsula overhanging the main valley, sits the village of Châtillon, formerly crowned by a haughty feudal castle, on whose ruins was erected a statue of Pope Urban II, who long ago had trouble with the German emperors. The slopes below are hard to climb, because of their steepness and the network of tilled fields. Here we are at the heart of the vine-growing district, and these banks of the Marne contribute largely to the production of the famous champagne. The vines extend, on long rows of poles, to the very summit of the cliffs, especially on the right bank, which has a better exposure to the sun; they are often connected by strands of wire, on which straw mats are placed to protect the vines from the cold in winter.

[Sidenote: Allied troops find many obstacles.]

On a lower level, nearer the stream, are magnificent orchards: the cherry tree joins with the vine to impart to those slopes an aspect of rustic opulence. Huddled white villages, with tawny-hued pointed roofs, follow one another in regular succession on the rolling ground. Their names have lately won a terrible celebrity: Binson, Vandières, Vincelles, Tréloup. Sandstone quarries burrow into the summit of the cliffs and furnish shelters for the defenders. Finally, there are strips of forest along the slopes wherever the exposure is thought poorly suited for crops. All these features unite to form a cheerful, animated, lovely landscape; but at the same time a conglomeration of obstacles which the Allied troops were able to overcome only after fierce fighting.

[Sidenote: Villages in the hillsides.]

Below the little town of Dormans, the valley narrows temporarily: from Tréloup to Brasles it is frequently less than 500 metres in width. The cliff, although steep as before, is less cut up, and the patches of forest are large. At the mouths of the smaller affluent valleys, the villages rear their church-towers on the hillsides, overlooking the lowest vineyards and orchards; on this right bank are Jaulgonne, Chartèves, and Mont Saint-Père, all taken by the Allies late in July, and Fossoy, where the Americans successfully repulsed the German attack of July 15.

[Sidenote: The ancient town of Château-Thierry.]

But now the valley widens once more as it enters the broad basin of Château-Thierry. It is a beautiful spot, and at the same time, of great military value. The little town long ago forgot its rôle of fortress, but has been brutally reminded of it by the violence of the battles that have been fought in its neighborhood. In the foreground is the wide expanse of fields in the valley bottom; then a suburb of the town enclosed between two arms of the Marne. Across the river, scaling the slopes of a hill crowned by the ruins of a castle, the town rises, terrace-like, at the mouth of a narrow valley. The position can be carried by frontal attack only on the heels of a defeated foe, as Napoleon carried it in 1814, and Franchet d'Esperey just a hundred years later. But in 1918 the Americans had to take Château-Thierry in flank, and in order to force their way into the town, had to fight the bloody battles of Vaux, Bouresches, and Etrepilly, which carried them to the north of the town and hastened its evacuation.

[Sidenote: Military operations difficult.]

What is the nature of the terrain above those steep cliffs which enclose the valley of the Marne? Does it become more favorable to military operations than the deep depression through which the river flows? Not by any means. The surface of the table-land is broken by so many ravines and narrow valleys which descend steeply to the Marne, that it is cut into a multitude of ridges and hillocks amid which it is no longer possible to recognize the original horizontal aspect of the plateau.

[Sidenote: Heavy impermeable soil.]

[Sidenote: Hills that are fortresses.]

On the other hand, the strata which lie on the surface--loam, sandstone, and clayey sand--make a heavy, impermeable soil, quite infertile, in which it is hard to raise anything, and which is largely given over to woods. Thus, freedom of movement is impeded by deep ravines, ridges running in all directions, and more or less dense forests; an offensive is difficult, and the defensive easy. This is true in the immediate neighborhood of Château-Thierry, where the ravines of Vaux, Brasles, Chartèves, Jaulgonne, and Tréloup, and the valley of the Surmelin, slash the plateau on either side of the Marne into fragments--into forest-topped hillocks which are genuine fortresses, where the struggle was terrific and where the Allies were able to advance only one step at a time: on Hill 204, west of Château-Thierry, in the Bois de Mont St-Père, the forest of Fèze above Jaulgonne, and especially on the spur of the forest of Riz; and south of the Marne, at the broad, wooded bastion of Saint-Agnan and at La Chapelle-Monthodon, where the fighting was so intense from the 15th to the 20th of July.

[Sidenote: The villages and forests of the table-land.]

[Sidenote: Genuine mountain battles.]

This strip of broken table-land becomes broader again farther upstream, above Dormans and Châtillon-sur-Marne. In that direction the plateau of the Ile de France ascends until it is more than 260 metres above the stream. Erosion has been even more active there, and in that part of the Tardenois the plateau is dissected into narrow strips separated by deep valleys, broad and moist, the largest of which is the valley of the Ardre. In the valley bottoms the streams are bordered by bands of tillage land; above, on the lower slopes, amid the vineyards and orchards which monopolize all the favorable exposures, is a multitude of small villages, some of which have become famous--Ste. Euphraise, Bligny, and Ville-en-Tardenois, whose rustic dwellings of uncut rubble, arranged amphitheatre-wise, sheltered some 500 inhabitants. Higher up, on the uneven surface of the plateau, are scattered villages built on limestone foundations--tiny fortresses, like Rumigny and Champlat, the scene of hard-fought battles. Almost the entire surface is covered with forests of pine and oak and birch. These are the woods of Le Roi, Courton, Pourcy, and Reims, where hand-to-hand fighting went on for more than a fortnight, British, Italians, and French succeeding at first in checking the enemy and then in forcing him back, in those titanic combats. They were, in reality, genuine mountain battles; for the hills reach a height of 265 metres, above the level of the plateau, while the valleys are at least 100 metres deep; and the difficulties of the uneven surface were greatly increased by the obstacles offered by forests, vineyards, streams, and the villages, closely packed with stone houses, which could easily be transformed into fortifications.

[Sidenote: The first great American battle.]

A deep, broad, swampy valley, traversed by an unfordable stream; surmounted by steep slopes bristling with vineyards, orchards, villages, and diversified by quarries; above, an entanglement of low hills, ravines, and valleys, under a mantle of forest--such was the theatre of operations in which the Americans won their first great victory. A more difficult terrain could not be desired, or one better adapted to test the valor of the victorious troops.

But when they had made themselves masters of this battlefield, the Allies were by no means at the end of their labors; and the difficulties of the ground to be traversed were still serious in the central portion of the theatre of operations--the Orxois.

[Sidenote: The Orxois plateau--its soil and relief.]

[Sidenote: A varied landscape.]

The Orxois is a plateau extending north of the Marne to the Soissonnais, at a mean height of 160 metres. But it is very far from being uniform. Let us study the nature of its soil, and the relief, that we may comprehend its aspects more thoroughly. The substratum of the plateau of the Orxois is the layer of rock called "hard limestone" 30 to 40 metres in thickness, so much of which is used for building material in the towns and villages. This layer is almost horizontal, and if there were nothing superimposed upon it, the plateau would be a practically level platform. But above the hard limestone are successive layers of a far different character--layers of sand, of Beauchamp sandstone, mingled with marl, making a moist, impermeable, infertile soil; then another layer of limestone, softer and more clayey than that below. Finally, this upper limestone is covered, especially toward the east, with thin layers of marl, clay and, lastly, Fontainebleau sand, which are connected with the strata of the Tardenois. Thus, to a depth of 100 metres, we find a succession of diversified strata, hard and soft, dry and moist, which impart great variety to the landscape.

The valleys which intersect this conglomeration run from east to west, toward the deep depression hollowed out by the Savières and the Lower Ourcq. From north to south, we can count three--the Upper Ourcq, by Fère-en-Tardenois and La Ferté Milon, the Ru d'Alland, and the Clignon. Very wide where they pass through the upper strata, these valleys grow abruptly narrower and deeper when they reach the level of the hard limestone, where they are little more than deep and narrow ditches. Between these furrows, the marl, sand, and softer limestones form ridges, now steep, now rising more gently, the sandy soil bearing woods, the limestones cultivated fields.

[Sidenote: The ridges run east and west.]

Thus the whole plateau of the Orxois is a series of elevations and depressions, running from east to west, which form just so many obstacles to an advance from south to north like that of the Allies. Luckily they approached this locality at the same time from the west, which enabled them to outflank the obstacles simultaneously with their approach from the south.

[Sidenote: Torcy, Belleau and Bouresches.]

North of Château-Thierry, three or four kilometres from the Marne, the plateau is less diversified. The only obstacle is the valley of the Clignon, which deepens rapidly toward the west. Above it, at the summit of the limestone cliff, the plateau forms a species of promontories on which are built villages--Torcy, Belleau, Bouresches. The American troops had held their positions there during the last part of June, and it was there that the heroic marines halted the enemy in his march upon Paris. And again, it was there that they assumed the offensive on July 18, to outflank Château-Thierry from the north. On that day they carried the ridges of Torcy and Belleau; on the 19th they pressed beyond Bouresches; and on the 20th they forced their way into Etrepilly and Château-Thierry.

[Sidenote: The terrain beyond is less rugged.]

Immediately beyond, the terrain is not so difficult. The Clignon valley becomes less rugged and gradually blends with the plateau. Toward Bézu-St.-Germain and Epieds lies a comparatively open plain with extensive stretches of fallow land. In this more open region the progress was more rapid; on July 22 the American troops took possession of Epieds, twelve kilometres from Bouresches, their starting point.

[Sidenote: Along the valley of the Ourcq.]

But the difficulties are more serious farther to the north, along the hills which form the southern boundary of the valley of the Ourcq. Although the depression made by the Ru d'Alland, being broad and level, is not a considerable obstacle, it is not the same beyond. The relief map shows a line of heights running from west to east, and rising higher and higher in that direction. From these heights a multitude of valleys descend to the Ourcq, from south to north, cutting the crest into hills separated by depressions. Thus the terrain is broken up in every direction and well adapted to meet an attack from the west as well as one from the south.

[Sidenote: The French carry ridges and valleys in succession.]

It was necessary to deal with all these obstacles one by one. Starting from the west, the French had to carry successively these lines of crests and depressions with their fortified villages: ridge of Monnes, July 19; ravine of Neuilly-St-Front the same evening; the hill of Latilly and its wood the 20th; La Croix and Grisolles the 21st, with their thickets and dense plantations of osiers. On the 23d the Allied troops took Rocourt and the wood of Le Chatelet; on the 24th the deep ravine of Brécy; and, finally, on the 25th, French and Americans together attacked the hill of the forest of Fère, which is 228 metres high, completely covered with woods, cut by ravines, and flanked by fortified villages. On the 27th the whole position was taken, and the Allies were on the verge of the deep valley of the Ourcq, which they were next to cross.

[Sidenote: Caves in the cliffs.]

[Sidenote: Allies turn the line of the Ourcq.]

This line was a by no means inconsiderable obstacle. Imagine, if you please, a deep depression, twisting and turning in all directions, and from 200 to 400 metres wide, extending at least as far as Fère-en-Tardenois. It is bounded on either side by cliffs of hard limestone, 30 to 40 metres high, in which innumerable caves are scooped--the so-called _boves_, which are used as dwellings, with doors and windows flush with the face of the cliff. These _boves_ are invaluable defensive positions, out of reach of bullets and shells. The valley bottom is wet and swampy, with dense clumps of poplars mingled with alder-bushes. There are numerous villages at the foot of the cliffs,--Rozet-St.-Albain, Brény, Armentières,--or on the slopes above, like Noroy. A frontal attack on such a position would have been too costly. The Allies turned the line of the Ourcq from the north. They crossed the river in force in the upper part of its course, where it has not yet attacked the stratum of hard limestone, and where the valley is wider, and the sides are less steep. Nevertheless they encountered terrible difficulties.

[Sidenote: Strategic value of hills of Orxois.]

North of the Ourcq, indeed, the last heights of the Orxois form another chain of hills, from four to six kilometres wide--the last obstacle before we come to the plateau of the Soissonnais. These hills are of the greatest possible diversity of shape and vary in height from 200 metres at the western extremity to 230 at the eastern. Their bases consist largely of sandstone and Fontainebleau sand, with clumps of forest scattered here and there; higher up is the softer limestone, the land being entirely cleared and covered with crops. Here and there we find the remains of the former covering of clay and Fontainebleau sand--wooded ridges which expand toward the east into the wood of Seringes, the forest of Nesle, and Meunière wood. These hills, the last as we travel northward, where they command the whole of the Soissonnais, have therefore the greatest strategic value, particularly the positions of Hartennes, Plessier-Huleu, and Seringes.

[Sidenote: The French approach from the west.]

Luckily these formidable defensive positions were approached from the west, astride the ridges. Starting from the forest of Retz, the French crossed the Savières with a rush, and in a single bound reached Noroy-sur-Ourcq and Villers-Hélon, which lie along one of the ridges, surrounded by orchards. On July 19 they had advanced three kilometres to the east; the strong line of the Ourcq was outflanked. On the 20th they were at Parcy-Tigny and Rozet-St.-Albain, pushing forward over the broken ground planted with sugar-beets and cereals, enlivened in spots by small clumps of trees perched on the sandstone hillocks. Thus they drew near to the heart of the position--the ridges of Plessier and of Hartennes. There the resistance was much more violent; but after three days of hard fighting, the French entered Plessier and approached the village of Oulchy-la-Ville, surrounded by picturesque heaps of sandstone blocks mingled with pines and birches. On the 25th, in the evening, they were in occupation of Oulchy-le-Château, which lies in a charming vale running down to the Ourcq. The line of the Ourcq, as to that portion where the river, flowing between high cliffs, constitutes a real obstacle, was in the Allies' hands.

[Sidenote: Fère-en-Tardenois and Sergy.]

It remained to complete the victory by the conquest of the eastern sector of the hills; and this again was no easy task. The French and Americans had now to approach that strong defensive position from the south. On the 28th they entered Fère-en-Tardenois; the Americans crossed the Ourcq, taking Sergy, which changed hands nine times. On July 31, after more titanic battles, they wrested Seringes from the foe. On August 1 there was a general advance all along the line, and the Allies carried the whole line of hilltops, from Plessier-Huleu to Meunière wood.

[Sidenote: Heroes of the second battle of the Marne.]

This was the end: the horizon expanded. From the heights conquered in fourteen days of fighting the Allies went down to the plateau of the Soissonnais; soon they would reach the Vesle and join hands with the troops who had retaken Soissons. Among the numberless heroes of this second battle of the Marne, they who stormed the heights of the Orxois and either outflanked or crossed the valley of the Ourcq were the bravest of the brave and are entitled to the largest share of our gratitude. The third act of the battle was played upon a terrain quite different from those preceding it. The relief is considerably simplified. The great plateau of the Ile de France, which is buried, as it were, under the accumulations of recent deposits, where erosion has worn gaps in the ridges of the Orxois, and hollowed out the deep ravines of the Tardenois, is reduced here to the substratum of hard limestone, almost entirely free from superimposed layers. So that, instead of being an uneven, swampy district, the Soissonnais is a dry level table-land, where the streams flow underground through the layers of limestone. A fertile district, too, for the surface is covered with a thin coating of loam, in which sugar-beets and cereals vie with one another in profusion of growth.

[Sidenote: Valleys of the Vesle and the Aisne.]

[Sidenote: Fertile slopes and valleys.]

However, the plateau is intersected by occasional valleys, generally broad and deep. The two most considerable are those of the Vesle and the Aisne which come together above Soissons, at Condé, and isolate the famous Chemin-des-Dames to the north. Two tributaries, Ambleny brook and the Crise, flowing down to the Aisne, subdivide the southern portion of the Soissonnais, where the battle was fought. With respect to the plateau, these valleys are little worlds apart. Below the hard limestone, they have hollowed out a path through very soft rocks, sands, and clays; in these the streams have inevitably made large inroads, sapping the limestone cliffs which overhang them. Thus the valley bottoms are abnormally wide--from two to three kilometres near Soissons. The presence of the clayey soils makes them very moist, and we find there fields of beets and grain side by side with extensive tracts of grassland. On the lower slopes are many small fields given over to the less hardy products--beans, orchards, and sometimes grape-vines. Here are most of the villages, at the level where the water-courses, seeping through the limestone of the plateau, reappear in the shape of springs, on the impervious stratum. For the most part the villages lie along the hillsides, surrounded by trees, embellished by châteaux and parks. They are well-built and attractive, boasting churches of graceful architecture, thanks to the lovely decorative stone taken from the quarries in the limestone cliffs above, which are called _boves_, or _croutes_. A fascinating, fertile country, diversified and pleasant to the eye, before the war it might well have been taken as a sample of rural opulence.

[Sidenote: Great difficulties of passage.]

Plateau and valleys, then, differ materially--the one monotonous and easy of access; the other, no less charming than varied, but presenting great difficulties of passage in the face of opposition. There is not a village on the plateau: only a few large farms and scattered sugar-beet refineries. In the valleys and on the slopes there are everywhere houses, châteaux, parks, orchards, and grottoes. The slender church-tower barely rises to the level of the plateau, as if to watch for the approach of an enemy. The conditions then were quite simple: on the plateau it was possible to gain many kilometres in a single rush; but in the valleys a fierce resistance was to be expected.

[Sidenote: The Franco-American attack.]

The French and American attack in the Soissonnais was fortunate in its starting-point. In the course of the hard-fought battles between June 15 and July 15, the French had retaken the entire valley of Ambleny-Coeuvres, and had gained a footing on the plateau to the eastward, which stretches as far as the outskirts of Soissons. To the south they had completely cleared the verge of the forest of Retz, from which they were thus able to debouch into the plain.

[Sidenote: In sight of Soissons.]

[Sidenote: Germans bring up reserves.]

The first onrush was magnificent. Starting at ten minutes to five in the morning, the Allies were within sight of Soissons at ten o'clock, having overrun the whole plateau on a front of some ten kilometres. Rarely has a more successful attack been seen in this war. It was even said that on this first day some French and Americans got as far as the suburbs of Soissons. But the danger for the Germans was too great, and they brought all their reserves thither. Moreover, they had the valley of the Crise to support their defense.

[Sidenote: Artillery can hardly see the villages.]

This valley is the widest and deepest of all those which eat into the plateau of the Soissonnais from the south. The very considerable depression is more than 100 metres below the surface of the plateau, which it cuts in two, effectively shutting off all progress from west to east; for on the south a narrow isthmus, that of Vierzy, barely separates it from the ravine of the Savières; and on the southeast it reaches to the foot of the wooded hills of Hartennes. Clinging to the sides of the valley and of the ravines which open into it, numerous villages--Vauxbuin, Berzy-le-Sec, Villemontoire, Buzancy--are the more difficult to capture because the artillery can hardly see them, as they lie close against the hillside. It was on the Crise, in the latter part of May, that a handful of Frenchmen held up the German avalanche from the Chemin-des-Dames.

[Sidenote: German guns have revenge.]

[Sidenote: Allies enter Soissons.]

The Germans paid us back in July. Sheltered in the ravines and windings of the valley, their artillery, being almost invisible, had nothing to disturb its aim. The villages, the orchards, the grottoes, crammed with machine-guns, were so many fortresses; the whole valley was a veritable hell. There were incessant counter-attacks, which the Allies, on the bare plateau, entirely devoid of cover, could repel only with the greatest difficulty. They pushed forward step by step, and by fits and starts. On the 19th our troops were hard put to it to hold the ground they had taken the day before; on the 20th they barely began to nibble at the ravines, at Ploisy and L'Echelle. On the 21st the Americans took Berzy-le-Sec, and the French were astride the lower waters of the Crise; on the 23d they went down into the ravine of Buzancy. But not until the 25th did they gain possession of the promontory of Villemontoire; and only on the 29th did a Scottish division, after three days of forward fighting, carry Buzancy. This last success, to be sure, was decisive, for it uncovered the upper valley of the Crise. And so, on August 2, the enemy gave way; that day the Allies crossed the valley along its entire length, and advanced across the eastern side of the plateau as far as the Vesle. On the same day they entered Soissons--at last. The ancient capital of the French kings, the city which formerly disputed the claim of Paris to be called the metropolis, is now no more than a mass of ruins. For four long years the war has laid its heavy hand upon her; and it is no new thing for her, since she had played an important military rôle in 1814, 1815, and 1870. She owes it to her fine location, in the heart of a broad valley, where the roads from south and east meet. Let us hope that her martyrdom will soon come to an end.

[Sidenote: The Allies hold the entire plateau.]

Here ended the second battle of the Marne. The Allies have regained possession of the whole plateau which extends from the Marne to the Vesle and the Aisne. They have established themselves in the valleys of those great rivers, from Soissons to Braisne, Bazoches, and Fismes--even to Rheims. They find there formidable obstacles to be overcome: a broad, moist, sometimes swampy bottom; facing them the cliff of the Chemin-des-Dames and the plateau of the Vesle, with its cap of limestone, and its numerous windings lined with villages and grottoes. Except in case of a surprise or a voluntary retirement, it will be a hard job to carry these positions. But sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. The results already achieved are fine enough to justify us in declaring ourselves satisfied.

[Sidenote: The American troops do magnificent work.]

[Sidenote: Peers of the world's best soldiers]

The work done in their début, by the American troops in conjunction with our own, was magnificent. They fought against victorious soldiers sure of success, and whipped them. They were engaged on a difficult terrain. In the south they were obliged to cross a broad river and wide valleys, to scale cliffs bristling with defensive positions. In the center they were confronted by a confused entanglement of broken ground, hills and ravines, woods and open fields, bisected by a deep valley half-concealed by trees. In the north they became acquainted with the snare formed by plateaus falling abruptly away into the wolf-trap of ravines, where the enemy, lying in ambush, refused to give ground. The Americans triumphed over all these obstacles, and deserve to be reckoned the peers of the best soldiers in the world. On the other hand, fighting as they have fought in these countrysides, so typically French in their simplicity and grandeur, and seeing all their charms foully outraged, our attractive villages destroyed, our churches--graceful masterpieces, in almost every case, of the Middle Ages--desecrated and shattered, they have come to understand France better; they have had a share in her misfortunes and in her hopes.

Copyright, Atlantic Monthly, December, 1918.

* * * * *

Throughout the war Germans persisted in the assumption that by nightly raids from bombing machines and Zeppelins they could spread terror among the Allies and weaken their morale. They did succeed in killing a large number of defenseless men and women, but this was the only result of these attacks. A vivid account of these night raids is given in the narrative following.

NIGHT RAIDS FROM THE AIR

MARY HELEN FEE

[Sidenote: Thousands of automobile trucks.]

When the first offensive began to the north of us, we, who were stationed in the American Canteen at E----, not more than fifteen miles from Rheims, were thrilled by the sight of the thousands of automobile trucks, which like a mighty river flowed ceaselessly by our canteen carrying French troops up to the English front; and we grew sad when we beheld ambulance convoys hurrying in the same direction.

We could not be oblivious to certain signs which pointed to renewed activity in our sector. The American ambulance boys predicted with the emphasis and at the same time with the vagueness born of surmise instead of exact knowledge, that we should "see something doing" in a few weeks.

[Sidenote: Few German airplanes.]

What chiefly excited our curiosity, however, was the scarcity of German airplanes. Although the days were clear and fine for observing, only occasionally did the barking of guns call us outside to behold a little white, shimmering object skipping defiantly through extremest blue while tufts of woolly cloud broke far below it, serving only to aid us in detecting the almost invisible plane. One came over one night just about sunset, and called us and our dinner guests from the beginning of a meal. Another paid us an early morning call. Then for nearly three weeks we enjoyed undisturbed rest at night. Not once did the "alerte" send us shivering to damp cellars; not once did we hear the deep "boom" followed by a savage jar and rattle which differentiates the falling bomb or torpedo from the cannon. We said, fatuously, that we believed all the airplanes were engaged up on the English front, and that at last our mastery of the air must be firmly established.

[Sidenote: News of the second offensive.]

[Sidenote: The permissionaires return in good humor.]

It was on a Monday that the news of the second offensive reached us. Trains from Paris were delayed and the Paris papers did not arrive, but the ambulance men told us there was a German offensive from Rheims to Soissons. Next day the canteen was crowded with permissionaires hastily recalled from leave and hurrying to join their regiments at the front. Most of them had passed through, ten to two days before, in the subdued good humor with which the poilu hails his bath, disinfecting, clean clothes, and relative security of body while on a ten days' leave. They were going back to face death, mutilation, and an experience which drives many men mad. There was no undue hilarity about them, but a quiet determination which has been reflected in the stand made by the armies. Here and there a weakling had tried to escape thought in drink, but the percentage of that sort was very small.

[Sidenote: Three weeks' respite of raids.]

On Tuesday more news drifted in, and that night I did not fully undress on going to bed. So strongly can the sense of optimism be grown from little habit that a respite of three weeks from bombing attacks had almost (though not quite) convinced me there would never be any more. I may explain that I was serving as canteen accountant, and occupied a tiny three-room apartment across the street from the canteen, between it and the railway station, and I took my meals at one of the two Red Cross houses maintained in E----.

[Sidenote: Objective of a bomb attack.]

When a town is bombed, the Germans have various objectives, principally the railway stations, troop barracks, canteens, munition dumps, food stores, and hospitals. As a rule, when private homes are destroyed, it is because they happen to be close to these points of attack. Torpedoes are too expensive to be wasted in chance destruction.

[Sidenote: Lights are extinguished in the war zone.]