ote: Serious obstacles to an offensive.]

This value, as a matter of fact, was great. The theatre of operations at
Verdun offers far fewer inducements to an offensive than the plains of
Artois, Picardy, or Champagne. The rolling ground, the vegetation, the
distribution of the population, all present serious obstacles.

[Sidenote: The plateaus of the Meuse.]

[Sidenote: Hills and ravines.]

The relief-map of the region about Verdun shows the sharply marked
division of two plateaus situated on either side of the river Meuse. The
plateau which rises on the left bank, toward the Argonne, falls away on
the side toward the Meuse in a deeply indented line of high but gently
sloping bluffs, which include the Butte de Montfaucon, Hill 304, and the
heights of Esnes and Montzeville. Fragments of this plateau, separated
from the main mass by the action of watercourses, are scattered in long
ridges over the space included between the line of bluffs and the Meuse:
the two hills of Le Mont Homme (295 metres), the Cote de l'Oie, and,
farther to the South, the ridge of Bois Bourrus and Marre. To the east
of the river, the country is still more rugged. The plateau on this bank
rises abruptly, and terminates at the plain of the Woevre in the cliffs
of the Cotes-de-Meuse, which tower 100 metres over the plain. The brooks
which flow down to the Woevre or to the Meuse have worn the cliffs and
the plateau into a great number of hillocks called _cotes_: the Cote du
Talon, Cote du Poivre, Cote de Froideterre, and the rest. The ravines
separating these _cotes_ are deep and long: those of Vaux, Haudromont,
and Fleury cut into the very heart of the plateau, leaving between them
merely narrow ridges of land, easily to be defended.

[Sidenote: Stretches of forest.]

[Sidenote: Villages well placed for defense.]

These natural defenses of the country are strengthened by the nature of
the vegetation. On the rather sterile calcareous soil of the two
plateaus the woods are thick and numerous. To the west, the approaches
of Hill 304 are covered by the forest of Avocourt. On the east, long
wooded stretches--the woods of Haumont, Caures, Wavrille, Herbebois, la
Vauche, Haudromont, Hardaumont, la Caillette, and others--cover the
narrow ridges of land and dominate the upper slopes of the ravines. The
villages, often perched on the highest points of land, as their names
ending in _mont_ indicate, are easily transformed into small fortresses;
such are H