LAND AND WATER 
January 23, 1915. 
'ft 
h^!^ 
^'To "Paris 
about lEnalish mile. 
A 
The importance of this spur consisted in i/>s 
forming a gun position, whence the valley above 
Crouy could be swept. In the accompanying 
sketch map it is marked P, and its character is 
clearly apparent. We may regard it, then, as 
solidly occupied upon the morning of the 12th. 
We shall see in a moment how this French 
local movement, with its comparatively small 
numbers, its lack of any but a local reserve, etc., 
connotes a general plan common to all the line, 
and how it resembled work that was being done 
elsewhere along the long line. At any rate, by 
this Monday we find the French on top of the spur 
at P only just below the general flat of the plateau 
which the Germans have been holding for now four 
months. The French had also taken the village of 
Cuf&es, but they were still held at the mouth of 
the valley where the railway runs, and found it 
impossible to debouch from Crouy, the village 
which holds that mouth. 
It will be seen that the vigorous Fre-nch ad- 
vance had already lasted forty-eight hours. 
At this juncture large reinforcements of 
troops began to appear upon the enemy's side, and 
these reinforcements having at last produced an 
appreciable superiority of number for the enemy, 
the counter-offensive was taken by them, beginning 
about the Monday noon. 
Those of the French who had now gained the 
crest of the hills were anxious to observe that the 
valley-floor below them was already flooded, and 
that the waters were rising to the level of the tem- 
porary bridges. Beside the two wooden bridges 
at Venizel and Missy, the French engineers 
had added a foot-bridge. Tuesday saw the 
French facing new and very large reinforce- 
ments and losing groimd on the right. The 
waters still rose during all that day, and just after 
four o'clock, as the ever-increasing numbers of the 
Germans who were being concentrated against the 
French division were beginning to exercise a serious 
pressure, the bridge of Venizel, the central and 
most important of the bridges, broke. The re- 
inforcements, and in particular the artillery muni- 
tions from the other side of the river, were thus cut 
off in the French centre, and it was evident that 
unless these communications could be rapidly re- 
stored, the position of the division beyond the river 
—now fighting, perhaps, three to one— would be 
desperate. The order to retire was not yet given, 
when the second bridge, that at Missy, in its turn 
was carried away. 
The French that Tuesday evening still held 
upon their left and kept the edge of the plateau, 
but Crouy, which had held them up in the early 
operations when they were equally matched in 
numbers, now became more and more difficult for 
them to hold, and they were pressed down the 
slopes further east on to the Crouy-Missy road. 
It should here be noted, for the purposes of 
forming our judgment later on, that no consider- 
able reinforcements were suggested for the French 
apparently until that same day, Tuesday; in spite 
of the increasing number of the enemy, the original 
strength of a depleted division had to take all the 
weight of the fighting. 
The German forces continued to increase. 
They were, as I have said, perhaj^s about three to 
one Avhen reinforcements were attempted to be 
sent forward by the French across the still intact 
bridges, just sufficient to hold the positions already 
acquired. 
It was now dark, and after dark, in the night 
between the Tuesday and the Wednesday, the 
French engineers laboured as best they could to 
replace the bridges, in spite of the rapidly rising 
water. By this time the whole valley floor was 
flooded. 
When the morning of the 13th came — that is 
the morning of Wednesday— the French beyond 
