158 



entire position as a protection ai^ainst spies. This battery had 

 been firing for four clays from the same position without being- 

 discovered, although French aviators had located all of its sister 

 batteries so accurately that they had suffered considerable loss 

 from shrapnel fire. 



The present war is, of course, the first in which the forests 

 have exercised this important function of concealing the positions 

 and numbers of the various armies from the vigilance of the 

 enemy's airmen. In open country nothing is more simple than 

 for an aviator to determine with consiciierable accuracy ,the 

 strength, position, and movements of the enemy's forces. In a 

 forest this is impossible, and to the concealment which it affords 

 can probably be attributed mainly what few surprises the strate- 

 gists of the contending countries have been able to bring about 

 in spite of aviators and spies. To the latter the forest offers an 

 excellent opportunity for effective scouting. Natives of the 

 country, thoroughly familiar with local conditions, find it compar- 

 atively easy to steal by outposts and to observe the enemy without 

 being detected. 



In the war zone of Northeastern France conditions as regard 

 forest cover vary wddely. In the roughly rectangular area to the 

 northeast of the Seine and northwest of the Oise, the country 

 is for the most part very flat, and is almost wholly given up to 

 agriculture. To the south of the Oise and the Aisne, it becomes 

 more undulating, with low hills, and here the farming land is 

 interspersed with patches of forest and woodland. Still farther 

 to the south and east along the Meuse river and in the Vosges 

 mountains, the coiuitry becomes still more rugged and the forests 

 more abundant. 



The topography and the distribution of the forests throughout 

 this region probably account largely for the decision of the Ger- 

 mans to hurl their main attack against France through Belgium 

 rather than through the more difiicult route to the south. To 

 these factors can also be attributed in large measure the rapid 

 advance of the right wing of the (ierman army in the early stages 

 of the war, while the left made little or no progress. In the north 

 the comparatively level, unwooded country interposed practically 

 no obstacle to the free movement of the armies, and as a result the 

 early advance of the Germans here was almost incredibly swift. 

 During the same period, fartlier to the .south in the region of 

 N'erdun and Nancy, the rugged, heavily wooded country, in con- 

 junction with fortifications and strongly entrenched troops, held 

 l)oth armies practically stationary. 



To what extent the forests in the war zone will be injured 

 during the progress of the war is i)rol)lematical. That they will 

 suffer more or less, however, cannot l^e doubled. Much wood 

 will be cut for fud and construction work; trees will be felled 

 to bl(jck roads; whule stands may be leveled to clear the way for 

 artillery fire; and the rain of shot and shell will do nnich damage 



