st picturesque; it
includes the shores of the Marne, from Epernay to Chateau-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.

[Sidenote: The wake of the American armies.]

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.

[Sidenote: Valleys of stream cut deep.]

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.

[Sidenote: The placid Marne.]

[Sidenote: The Marne easy to cross.]

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 on