haps give his
description of the line of the Argonne which occurs on page 157 of _The
French Revolution_:

The Argonne is a long, nearly straight range of hills running from
the south northward, a good deal to the west of north.

Their soil is clay, and though the height of the hills is only
three hundred feet above the plain, their escarpment or steep side
is towards the east, whence an invasion may be expected. They are
densely wooded, from five to eight miles broad, the supply of water
in them is bad, in many parts undrinkable; habitation with its
provision for armies and roads extremely rare. It is necessary to
insist upon all these details, because the greater part of civilian
readers find it difficult to understand how formidable an obstacle
so comparatively unimportant feature in the landscape may be to an
army upon the march. It was quite impossible for the guns, the
wagons, and therefore the food and the ammunition of the invading
army, to pass through the forest over the drenched clay land of
that wet autumn save where proper roads existed. These were only to
be found wherever a sort of natural pass negotiated the range.

Three of these passes alone existed, and to this day there is very
little choice in the crossing of these hills.

We may compare with this extract a most remarkable description of
country given by Mr. Belloc in his article on "The Great Offensive" in
the issue of _Land and Water_ of October 2, 1915. Describing the chief
movement in Champagne, he points out that the French advanced on a front
of seventeen and a half miles from the village of Auberive to the market
town of Ville-sur-Tourbe. He continues:

The first line of the enemy's defence in this region follows for
the most part a crest.... This ridge is not an even one, nor was
the whole of it occupied by the German works. In places it had been
seized by the French during their work last February, and has been
held ever since. Generally speaking, its summits nearly reach, or
just surpass, the 200 metre contour, above the sea, but the whole
of this country lies so high that such a height only means a matter
of 150 to 200 feet above the water levels of the little muddy
brooks that run in the folds of the land. It is a country of chalk,
but not of dry, turfy chalk, like those of the English Downs;