September 2G, 1914 
LAND AND WATEE 
FLAM SROWIKO THB POSITION lAST OF THB ABGOXNU. 
another attempt to pierce the fortified line between 
Verdun and Toul, with all the consequences that 
Avoiild attach to such a German success : the 
Kudden provision of shorter communications, the 
taking of the French advance through Champagne 
in reverse, etc. 
The attack on the fort of Troyon was made this 
time not from the western side of the Meuse (as was 
that of a fortnight ago when the Crown Prince was 
still holding on) but from the east. The forts along 
the Meuse here (of which the principal are the works 
of Jenicourt, Troyon, and Camp des Eomaius with an 
outlying fort at Liouville) stand upon the isolated 
summits of a bare crest which overlooks the trench 
through which the Meuse runs. To the east of this 
crest lies a Avide belt of hilly and wooded country 
falling at last rather shai-ply into the basin of the 
^Moselle. From the plains of that basin and against 
the line of these hills and woods a serious GeiTnan 
attemi)t Avould seem to have been made against, or 
rather towai-ds, that work of Troyon which is the 
central and most impoi-tant work of the barrier series, 
and the advantage to the enemy of taking which I 
described last week. 
The headquarters of the German Army during 
this attack were at Thiaucourt. A difficult region of 
wood and lake to the south protected it from the 
attack of the French forces round Toul and Nancy 
lurtlier south still ; and the Gemian assault was made 
from all along the line running through Trosauvaux 
and Vigneulles, to Hcudicourt ; that is, it proceeded 
everywhere from the lAixin at tlie base of the hills up 
the first wooded slopes. The French report that it 
■was everywhere repelled. 
SUMMARY OF THE WHOLE 
DEFENSIVE POSITION. 
If we now put together these five sections of the 
line which the Gennans ai*e holding against the Allies 
from the Oise to the Ai'gonne and examine the matter 
as a whole, what we see is what we might haA'^e 
exjjected from the routine imposed both by tradition 
and by national necessity upon French and upon 
German strategy. 
You have here in the main lines and on a some- 
what reduced scale a repetition of the position of three 
weeks ago, just before the Battle of the Mai-ne. 
Save that the Germans are technically upon the 
defensive instead of just having ceased an offensive 
movement, and save for the fact that the line as a 
whole is straighter than was the line between Pai'is 
and Vei-dun three weeks ago, the main features are 
repetitions of the features we then noticed in the 
struggle between the two forces. 
For there is (a) a detennined attempt upon the 
part of the Germans to break through the centre, in 
the former case at Vitry, in this case at Elieims ; 
(b) a resi.stance offei'ed at this centre by the French 
coupled with an attempt to work round the two 
German wings ; this attempt being weakest and 
pressed with least men on the French right or eastern 
extremity of the line, and strongest and pressed with 
most men on the French left or western extremity of 
the line ; (c) the use of a reserve by the French is 
also apparent. It is not an unexpected or hidden 
reserve like that which did so much to decide the 
retirement of Von Kluck from Paris. We know that 
the reserve is acting against the German right and 
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