LAND AND WATER 
October 3, 1914 
attack from tlic one fortress or the other. If tliey 
have sufficient forces they should be able to mask the 
garrisons of both those strongholds without fear of 
interruption to theii- columns passing across the 
lileusc between them. 
Next, unless the forces opposed to them upon 
the Meuse are strong enough to arrest this westward 
marcli, it is but two days' advance from a German 
crossing of the Meuse in force near St. ]\Iihiel to the 
ajipoarance of the German columns at Eeyigny, 
directly in the rear of the French line. A snnilar 
number of days would brmg the Crown Prince's Army 
down round or through the Argonne until it was at 
Ste. Menehould, and abreast of the companion force 
which had come across the Meuse from St. Mihiel to 
Kevigny. 
AVe sum up and find that any decisive German 
siiccess upon the western or left bank of the Meuse 
Tliere is the whole matter of this new German 
offensive movement upon the Upper ^Nfeuso. If it is 
seriously intended, if it is being prosecuted with large 
forces, and if no correspondiiigly large French forces 
are present to arrest it after the crossing of the ^leuse 
and the forcing of the fortified line Toul- Verdun, all 
these consequences wiU follow. But if it is only a 
feint undertaken with insufficient forces, and if the 
French commanders disregard the distraction attemjited 
here, the decisive field of the campaign will still be, not 
tliat of the Upper Meuse, but that where the heaviest 
fighting is now proceeding between St. Quentin and 
Peronne for the possession of the Oise Valley with its 
railway line and canals. 
Ijastly, we may easily establish how much has 
actually been done in this region of the Upper Meuse. 
To follow this I will ask tlie reader to look at this 
sketch. 
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VILLAGE OF APREMONT 
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SCALE. OF MILES 
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II.AN- KHOWINO DETAILS OF XHB ILTE- DE- FOXI NOW HBLD BY THK GERMANS OVER THE MECjK AT ST. UlUIKL, 
at such a central point as the neighbourhood of St. 
Mihiel, half-way between Verdun and Toul, would 
mean a threatenmg of the Allied line in Champagne, 
with two days' grace to escape and no more. In other 
words, it would mean an immediate retirement of that 
line, coupled with a con-esponding retirement of the 
French troops lying round Nancy and upon the Upper 
Moselle Valley south of Toul. The whole French 
line would be bent backwards behind Bar-le-Duc and 
the upper valley of the Ornain. Verdun and Toul 
would be invested, and when, or if they fell, the new 
and du-ect railway communications from Germany 
through Alsace-Lorraine would be opened by the 
The nature of the crossing Avhich the Germans 
have obtained over the Eiver Meuse at St. Mihiel can 
here be gi'asped in some detail. 
They hold a bridge-head, or tete-de-pont, and, so 
long as they hold it, they command a bridge in what 
was formerly the unbroken barrier between Verdun 
and Toul. But they do not possess this entry with- 
out drawbacks in their position. There are two roads 
leading across the hill country between the Meuse 
and the plain of Woeuvre. There is no railway. 
The rail-head is more than a day's march away at 
Thiacom-t. Of these two roads, the main road passing 
through Apremont is in the hands of the French, for 
the French, coming up from the garrison of Toul on 
8* 
