LAND AND WATEE September 2G, 1914 
FIRST OR EXTREME WESTERN SECTION. 
The first section is that lying between Soissons 
and the line of tlie Oise betAveen Noyon and Comj)iegne 
to the west. 
This section is somewhat over twenty miles in 
length. The crossing of the Aisne and the following 
lip of the Oise in ilank of the Grerraans was here 
enti-usted, as we have seen, to the 6th French Army. 
Sunday and Monday, September 13th- 14th, were 
the two days devoted to the crossing of the river 
which, difficult though it was, could only be the 
prelude to the real struggle beyond. 
The Gennan defensive line does not consist in 
the Eiver Aisne, but in the plateau beyond that 
stream to the north. As will be seen from the 
sketch, the genei'al base of that plateau is exceedingly 
irregular, for it is deeply ravined ; but a continuous 
central ridge is its main defensive featui-e. The 
jK)iiits at which the river Avas crossed in force by the 
6tli Army were Vic and Pontnoy, where pontoons 
Avere thrown across under a heavy fire from the gun 
positions upon the advancing outlines of the jjlateau, 
which fall in steep slopes doAvn from the north to the 
Aisne. By Tuesday morning the French troops had 
taken these first buttresses of the plateau, that is, 
they had pushed back the German line from the edges 
of the slopes above the river. They marched, fighting, 
through St. Christophe and occupied Nouvron and 
Autreches and the deepish valley of Morsain. The 
Gennans still maintained a number of guns, pushed 
forward upon the high fiats jjetwcen Autreches and 
the centre ridge, and it was the intention of the 
French command in this district to push forward 
sufficiently to cut off these guns. But the attempt 
failed. 
In the night between the Tuesday and the 
Wednesday a determined counter-offensive undertaken 
by the Germans from the district round about 
Nampcol drove the French back nearly to the river, 
and Autreches in particular was abandoned. All that 
"Wednesday night the searchlights played upon the 
trenches the French had dug nearer the stream and 
the shelling of these trenches by the Gennans was 
continuous. Upon Thursday, however, September 1 7th , 
the value of the considerable reseiwes which the 
French (in spite of their heavy work and in spite of 
what they were doing further west upon the Oise) 
still keep, was apparent. These forces were brought 
across the river, the Gennan counter-offensive was 
checked in the forenoon of that Thursday, and the 
Avhole Gei^nan line here was pushed right back to 
Nampcel itself and beyond. In other Avords it Avas 
pushed right on to the jirincipal ridge of the plateau. 
But further north it could not for the moment be 
pushed. It stood firm. And from this, the crest of 
the Avhole defensive position at its Avestern end, the 
lieaA-y guns were still playing on Sunday the 20th 
upon the Valley of the Aisne beloAV. 
In this partially successful operation some six 
hundred prisoners and a number of machine guns Avere 
taken. 
But meauAvhile other French forces had been 
sloAvly Avorking up the A'alley of the Oise in the west 
and so menacing the fiank of the German position. It 
needs no elaboration of description to sho-.v that this 
turning moA'cment Avould, if it were successful, compel 
the abandonment of at least all this part of the plateau 
and ridge above the Aisne by the Germans : for they 
Avould be menaced in rear. Ncavs of such a success 
liad not reached London by Wednesday night, but a 
steady if sIoav advance Avas being made in this direction. 
What has been said aboAC Avith regard to the 
German communications wiU. sufficiently indicate the 
purpose and value of such an advance. Unfortunately, 
there is nothing to tell us exactly Avhat its extent may 
be up to and including Sunday September 20th. But 
Ave may take it that those reaches of the Oise above 
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