t and
admiration.

The headquarters guard here was composed of a company of infantry. The
company's field kitchen, the soup-boiler and oven on wheels, which the
German army copied from the Russians and which the soldiers facetiously
and affectionately name their "goulash cannon," had that day, the
Captain said, fed 970 men, soldiers of his own and passing companies,
headquarters attaches, wounded men and the detachment of French
prisoners.

Experienced German officers rank the field kitchens, with the sturdy
legs of the infantry, the German heavy artillery and the aviation corps,
as the most important factors in the showing made by the German armies.

Beyond St. Benoit the Cote Lorraine, a range of wooded hills running
north and south along the east bank of the Meuse, rises in steeply
terraced slopes several hundred feet from the frontier plain,
interposing a natural rampart between Germany and the French line of
fortresses beyond the Meuse. The French had fortified these slopes with
successive rows of trenches, permitting line above line of infantry to
fire against an advancing enemy. For days a desperate struggle was waged
for the possession of the heights, which was imperative for the German
campaign against the line of fortresses.

Germans do not mention the extent of their losses in any particular
action, but it was admitted and evident that it had cost a high price to
storm those steep slopes and win a position in the woods crowning the
range from which their batteries could be directed against the French
forts. Vigneuilles, a village at the foot of the hillside, shot into
ruins by artillery and with every standing bit of house wall scarred
with bullet marks from the hand-to-hand conflicts which had swayed to
and fro in its streets, was typical of all the little stone-built towns
serving as outposts to this natural fortress which had been the scene of
imbittered attacks and counter-attacks before the German troops could
fight their way up the hillsides.

The combat is still raging on this day from north and south against the
segment of this range captured by the Germans. The French, massing their
troops by forest paths from Verdun and Toul, throw them against the
Germans in desperate endeavors to break the lines which protect the
sites for the German siege artillery, heavy mortars of 8-1/4 and 16-1/2
inch calibre and an intermediate sized type, and for the Austrian
automobile batteries of 12-inch siege guns.