nch then retreated some fifteen meters at Vauquois on March
23, 1915, when the Germans sprayed one of their trenches with
inflammable liquid.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XIII

CAMPAIGN IN ARGONNE AND AROUND ARRAS

There were some weak places in the French line from Switzerland to
the North Sea; and one of them was that part in the region between
the Forest of the Argonne and Rheims. General Langle de Cary was
in command of the army which held this section. It requires no
military genius to comprehend that the French center and the right
wing from Belfort to Verdun were not safe until the Germans had been
forced back across the Aisne at every place. The French general
had made an effort to drive the Germans under General von Einem
from Champagne Pouilleuse. The preliminary effort had been to stop
the Germans from using the railroad which ran from near the Nort
to Varennes through the Forest of the Argonne and across the upper
Aisne to Bazancourt.

After the battle of the Marne, the crown prince's army, severely
handled by the Third French Army under General Sarrail, pushed
hastily toward the north and established itself on a line running
perpendicularly through the Argonne Forest, at about ten or fifteen
kilometers from the road connecting Ste. Menehould with Verdun. Almost
immediately there developed a series of fights that lasted during a
whole year and were really among the bloodiest and most murderous
combats of the war. The German army in the Argonne, commanded by the
crown prince, whose headquarters had long been established at Stenay,
consisted of the finest German troops, including, among others, the
famous Sixteenth Corps from Metz, which, with the Fifteenth Corps
from Strassburg, is considered the cream of the Germanic forces.
This corps was commanded by the former governor of Metz, General von
Mudra, an expert in all branches of warfare relating to fortresses
and mines. Specially reenforced by battalions of sharpshooters
and a division of Wuerttembergers, the Twenty-Seventh, accustomed
to forest warfare, this corps made the most violent efforts from
the end of September, 1914, to throw the French troops back to
the south and seize the road to Verdun. The crown prince evidently
meant to sever this route and the adjoining highway, leading from
Verdun to Ste. Menehould. The road then turns to the south and
joins at Revigny, the main line of Bar-le-Duc to Paris via Chalons,
forming