s, enlivened in spots
by small clumps of trees perched on the sandstone hillocks. Thus they
drew near to the heart of the position--the ridges of Plessier and of
Hartennes. There the resistance was much more violent; but after three
days of hard fighting, the French entered Plessier and approached the
village of Oulchy-la-Ville, surrounded by picturesque heaps of sandstone
blocks mingled with pines and birches. On the 25th, in the evening, they
were in occupation of Oulchy-le-Chateau, which lies in a charming vale
running down to the Ourcq. The line of the Ourcq, as to that portion
where the river, flowing between high cliffs, constitutes a real
obstacle, was in the Allies' hands.

[Sidenote: Fere-en-Tardenois and Sergy.]

It remained to complete the victory by the conquest of the eastern
sector of the hills; and this again was no easy task. The French and
Americans had now to approach that strong defensive position from the
south. On the 28th they entered Fere-en-Tardenois; the Americans crossed
the Ourcq, taking Sergy, which changed hands nine times. On July 31,
after more titanic battles, they wrested Seringes from the foe. On
August 1 there was a general advance all along the line, and the Allies
carried the whole line of hilltops, from Plessier-Huleu to Meuniere
wood.

[Sidenote: Heroes of the second battle of the Marne.]

This was the end: the horizon expanded. From the heights conquered in
fourteen days of fighting the Allies went down to the plateau of the
Soissonnais; soon they would reach the Vesle and join hands with the
troops who had retaken Soissons. Among the numberless heroes of this
second battle of the Marne, they who stormed the heights of the Orxois
and either outflanked or crossed the valley of the Ourcq were the
bravest of the brave and are entitled to the largest share of our
gratitude. The third act of the battle was played upon a terrain quite
different from those preceding it. The relief is considerably
simplified. The great plateau of the Ile de France, which is buried, as
it were, under the accumulations of recent deposits, where erosion has
worn gaps in the ridges of the Orxois, and hollowed out the deep ravines
of the Tardenois, is reduced here to the substratum of hard limestone,
almost entirely free from superimposed layers. So that, instead of being
an uneven, swampy district, the Soissonnais is a dry level table-land,
where the streams flow underground through the layers of limeston