LAND AND WATER 
September 26, 1914 
SECTION V. -THE FIELD TO THE 
EAST OF RHEIMS. 
This fifth, or easternmost, section of the long 
defensive Ime between the Oise and the Argonne is of 
importance projwrtionate to the numbers which the 
French can spare in their advance across it. 
It foi-ms the left of that united defensive position 
which the enemy has taken up all across Champagne 
and the Soissons comitry. It is a wing, and if by 
any chance the French could here break through, they 
would turn the position as thoroughly, and with more 
complete results, than if it were turned upon the west, 
though the success of a turning movement by the 
west along the Oise is much the more likely 
happening. 
This eastern effoi-t, if it were fully successful, 
would cut off the main German army fi-om the Crown 
Prince's army upon the Meuse, and from the army of 
Ijorraine beyond the Meuse. 
But men cannot be everywhere at once, and, as 
the great reserve was accumulated behind Paris, it is 
almost certainly up the valley of the Oise that the 
weight of the French turning movement is being 
delivered, and should succeed. But even though the 
Fi-ench should fail to pierce the Grennan line here, 
they may succeed in pushing it back so much as to 
alter very materially the future of the campaign. 
In order to appreciate how this may be, I will 
ask the reader to look at the few lines and names 
marked upon the sketch above. 
It wiU be seen that a lateral railroad nms 
roughly east and west behind the Gemian line in this 
part of the field ; the German defensive position held a 
week ago, Souain-Le Mesnil-Les Hurlus-Massiges- 
Ville-sur-Tourbe, stretching along this line right to 
the Argonne. The raihvay of which I speak, running 
through St. Maj*tin, Sommepy, and Manre, feeds the 
whole of this line. That railway, further, goes on 
through a sort of pass in the Argonne, where a main 
road also crosses and where there is a clearing of the 
woods (known as the Gap of Grand Pre), and though 
this railway does not stretch as far as the Meuse, it 
docs connect up at its railhead with the Ci-own 
Prince's Army. That Gap of Grand Pr6 (famous in 
the Revolutionary Wars as one of the passes through 
which the Prussians forced the Argonne before their 
defeat at Valmy) is exceedingly important to the 
whole scheme of the German armies, as the following 
diiigram of the elements involved will show. 
The CrovsTi Prince was investing Verdun in the 
jwsition A B. The French advance of a fortnight 
ago compelled him to give up this investment and to go 
down the Meuse to the position C D. Now it is at 
that jwsition, C D, that the railway of wliich we are 
swaking here links up the main German Armies on 
the great defensive position which i-uns acrosss the 
Champagne country and along the Aisne to the Oise. 
This railway, therefore, though not a main line of 
communication and only joining the main line at 
Bazancourt, is of great importance to the Crown 
Prince's present position. Upon the holding of it 
depends the command of the power to cross and to 
retreat by the middle Meuse below the fortified zone 
of Verdim. If the main German Ai'my should fall 
back behind that railway, and if the French defensive 
in the direction of the arrows should be able to obtain 
possession of the line or be able to cut it, the Crow^^ 
I'rince would have to fall back further to the north in 
the direction F ; he would lose much of the Meuse : the 
remaining positions through which a retreat could be 
accomplished would be con-espondingly cramped ; and, 
perhaps most important of all, the army in Lorraine, 
which is stiU in touch with him at M.N.O., would be 
separated by a big gap fi'om him and from the rest. 
Well, in this attempt to get hold of the railw ay 
which leads from Bazancourt through the pass of 
Grand Pro, the French have three main roads by which 
to advance. Each of these I have marked upon the 
sketch at the beginning of this section. You have 
the road leading north through St. Martin, the road 
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leading north through Sommepy, and the road leading 
north through Manre. 
Of the French fortunes upon the first of these 
roads we have heard nothing ; and it is to be presimied 
tliat the advance along this has not been pushed very 
far, for it lies within the range of those heights of 
Nogeut I'Abbesse to the west which we know the 
Gennans to be occupying, and from wdiicli they ha\e 
bombarded Eheims. 
But the French progress along the other two roads 
has been considerable. On Sunday they were in 
Souain, and on Monday they took Le Mesnil and 
IMassiges. They were, therefore, by Tuesday morning 
in possession of what had been, three days before, the 
advanced German defensive, and within half a day's 
march of the railway line, which is their ultimate 
object. If they cross that railway line (with the 
important results I have suggested) we shall know it 
by the mention of theii* presence in Sommepy and 
Manre, and possibly in St. Martin as well. 
THE ACTIONS TO THE EAST OF 
ARGONNE. 
As to what is going on to the east of Argonne 
we know veiy little. The numbers here involved are 
not very great, and the whole work here is subsidiary 
to the great main conflict taking place to the west of 
Argonne and between that forest and the Oise. But 
information reached this country last Wednesday that 
during the first days of the week there had been 
10* 
