The control of the railways was easily secured. At each of the important stations Czech trains held the sidings. Due to the delay the trains which should have been en route to France piled up at the stations, and even in European Russia at Samara, Simbirsk and Suizran, a sufficient number of Czechs held the station points to make their capture by Bolsheviki forces a difficult matter. The Czechs made no attempt to seize the towns located some distance from the stations or any other territory. They wanted only to make secure their railroad travel. The high prices which they paid for their necessarily large supplies of provisions and the fact that they paid cash while the Bolshevik forces and Soviets often requisitioned food supplies, likewise their good cheer and personal magnetism, won for them the friendship of the peasant and artisan classes in many of the villages so that when the clash came only such Bolshevik forces as were definitely put to the task of disarming them were actually hostile. The easy-going and friendly Russian peasant, supine under the violent political changes, is a traditional friend and an unwilling enemy. This characteristic, which the Allied Governments have harshly criticized, may be counted upon to work to the advantage of the Allies under any fair scheme for economic aid and peaceful penetration which does not give grounds upon which active German propaganda could construct open hostility.
One may well wonder why the hundreds of thousands of Austrian war prisoners in Siberia have not blown up tunnels, destroyed tracks and otherwise tried to stop the Czech expedition. It may be that the Austrians secretly admired these men and were too tired of war to take the initiative in Siberia.
The seizure of Vladivostok by the Czechs was characteristic. From their arrival, they attracted the attention and admiration of the people, many of whom were planning an anti-Bolshevik demonstration. Every ship commander in the harbor had his men ready for landing parties in case of trouble. But there was no disorder on the day of the demonstration and not till a month later did a Bolshevik disturbance give the Czechs a chance to free an anti-Bolshevik city from its oppressors. Japanese, Chinese, English or Americans from the war-ships could have done it. But when the Czechs did it, a Slavic, Russian-speaking people gained control of a city that gladly welcomed their intervention. The same idea explains their marvelous success in Russia. Having braved death rather than fight Russians, the Czechs can now fight oppressive Russian elements without having their motives misunderstood or their plans opposed.
Siberia has afforded an interesting race study ever since the Teuton prisoners began to arrive. From the very first, German and Austrian prisoners mated with the sturdy peasant women of Siberia and settled to a happy and unhampered life in the undeveloped lands of the great plains. Some of the women had husbands at the front, but nichevo never means "never mind" to a greater extent than it does in Russian marital affairs. A man's a man for a' that, and there was little trouble until the two parents of different nationality and language discussed which language the children should be taught. German and Russian produce the same tow-headed stock. With the downfall of the Russian army the Russian husband sometimes returned and though quite willing to assume responsibility for the new offspring, insisted on asking the Austrian substitute at his bed and board to leave. As often as not the Austrian left. There were always a better farm and frau to be had elsewhere, and some Russian women are tiresome anyway.
When conditions are like this in Siberia, why should an Austrian return to a hungry country to fight a heroic enemy? A happy home in Siberia, which some other man has founded, or starvation in Austria? No wonder the Austrians in Siberia are a mercenary and unpatriotic lot. I saw many in the Bolshevik army. Most of those I talked with were under arms for the sake of the 200 rubles per month, equipment and food they were paid by the Bolsheviks, without, as they told me, planning to run any unnecessary chances of losing their lives in actual fighting against the Czechs or any other enemy of the Bolsheviks for that amount of money, if they could avoid it; not a very difficult matter.
Allied military support of the Czechs in Siberia is not Japanese intervention, and sentiment in Russia and Siberia against intervention to-day is now what it was six months ago. If the Bolsheviki do not represent the people of Russia, the only way the Russian people can develop confidence in themselves, and strength, is to throw off the Bolsheviki. The Archangel and Siberian regions have started such moves.
Siberia seems ready to welcome the Czechs, and if the Allied forces in Siberia keep themselves sufficiently in the background, Siberia will probably welcome the friends of the Czechs. The Allies have failed in Russia in the past because they have trusted upon material equipment rather than upon education of the people in the ideals of our cause. A certain amount of military intervention is necessary in Siberia if we are to protect the Czechs and protect the supplies which an economic mission would furnish. The danger lies in taking the control of that military intervention out of the hands of the Czechs. If my observation among all classes in Siberia counts for anything, the day the non-Slavic forces of the Allies, especially the Japanese, whom the Russians despise, move ahead of the Czechs who have already the confidence of the Russians as no Allied army could, that day the Allied army will encounter difficulties. This may spell tragedy for the cause of democracy.
In general the Volga divides Siberia, the home of the freedom-seeking exile, from Russia, in which for years German ideas have been encouraged to the exclusion of French and English. Whole sections of Russia and Siberia will starve this winter. If we follow the Czechs into Siberia with economic aid, repairing and consolidating the railroad lines behind them, installing modern methods of distribution we can then say to the stricken people—"Some of you are starving, but this is in spite of all the aid we can give." But across the Volga in Russia the people will say to Germany—"We are starving because you took our food, because you forced disorganization which has ruined us." Spring will allow the intelligent Russian peasant to compare such Americanism with the blight of Prussianism. Never fear that the object lesson will be in vain!
Can the Czechs become an actual nucleus for the forces of freedom in Russia and Siberia? They already are. The extent of their influence in Siberia, in the region of the Don and in the heart of the Central Powers themselves, is only limited by the support they receive from the Allies and the restraint of the latter in independent action. The fate of history may depend on the working out of the Czecho-Slovak miracle—a plain gift of fortune to the cause of freedom.
The spirit which animated the American soldiers in France was a revelation to the Allies, although it was precisely the spirit which Americans at home knew would inspire them when they reached the actual fighting line. Some instances of this spirit, and of experiences on the American firing line, are told in the following pages.
"We have arrived!"
The French Army officer, who, skilled through years of actual artillery service on the French fronts, had been my instructor through weeks of training, and my guide up to the Front, stood still and spoke most casually, as if our destination had been a Chicago restaurant.
"Yes, sir." I tried to be as casual, but could not disguise the excitement that filled me. "Shall—the guns—" and I stopped, startled at the tone of my own voice. It sounded as if it were coming from some person a dozen feet away. And as I stood there a sense of elation, that was possibly partly fear, swept over me. I looked about me, toward the direction of the French officer who had spoken, toward the fellows of my battery who had accompanied me up to the Front. I say toward their direction, for I could not see my comrades—the fog that had come over the land at sunset was too heavy to allow one to see an arm's length.
The officer snickered.
"Is this all that there is to it? Are we really on the firing line?" I asked aloud. "Why, it's as quiet here as the Michigan woods!"
The officer laughed again.
"At this minute, yes," he said; then, "Wait here, I will be back directly, and no noise!"
He went off through the fog, and I have never experienced such a feeling of loneliness as swept over me at that minute—loneliness, and I really believe disappointment,—for I had imagined the firing line to be a place of constant terror.
"Gee, this is what we've been training for all these months!" I heard one of the fellows say. "Well, all I've got to say is it won't be so quiet over on the Boches' land when we get started," and they all laughed.
It is absolutely impossible to describe the sensations that come over a fellow when he realizes that he is going under fire. I think that you pass through various stages that include every sensation in life. You are frightened, you are glad to get into the fight. You are anxious to begin—you wish you had a few weeks' longer training to become a better shot.
I am not sure how long we stood there waiting for the return of the French officer who was tutoring us for our baptism of fire, but suddenly he was at my side.
"The battery is to be over there," he pointed through the night, "and we will set up a signal station right here. The first thing to do is to dig in the telephone wires, for headquarters reports that there is considerable rifle fire about here in the daytime. Order a detachment of men to help you!"
"Yes, sir," and I went quickly back toward where I knew the men were waiting, happy to think that there was work to be done at once. I gave the orders that had been handed to me, and in about twenty minutes we were turning over the earth. While we were working others were just as busy, for our battery was being placed in position, and some fifty feet behind the battery the others of the signal service detachment, of which I was a member, were setting up a receiving station. As I helped in the digging of that small trench for telephone wires my heart sang, and I lived again the months that I had served in order that I might be fit for the service I was performing that minute.
It might be well, before going further into this narrative, to say that the fellows who had accompanied me were the first American troops to take charge of a sector of the French line, a sector which some day will be moved into the heart of Germany and make old friend Hun wish that there was a way for him to change his nationality and viewpoint.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.