Marcli 2, 1916. 
LAND AND WATER. 
ridge, which wc have called the ridge of Louvemont, and 
awaited the final and decisive shock. 
In each stage of these four retirements they took 
their toll from the enemy in his increasingly numerous 
bodies of attack, but the climax of the fight would only 
begin after this Friday, when the final dispositions had 
been reached. 
The battle, extending over five days, had given 
the enemy results in prisoners somewhat inferior to the 
two days in Champagne, in guns much the same. The 
action was but begun and already the expense at which 
the assailants had attained these results was far higher 
than the corresponding losses had been in Champagne. 
So far the French had fallen back through broken 
country. They now had reached a main position which 
is essentially one great connected height opposed like a 
wall to the enemy's assault. 
The battle for Verdun is a battle for the possession of 
that wall : The French hold it with the object of inflicting 
the greatest possible amount of losses upon the enemy. 
The enemy suffer those losses day after day with the 
object of piercing the French defensive line or turning 
it by the left or the right. The test of success in the 
one case is an enormous wastage in the enemy's military 
power through losses and through exhaustion of munitions; 
in the other, at the best, the breaking of the French front 
(an unlikely thing), at the least the occupation of the 
area of Verdun, five miles behind the ridge, which area of 
course no longer represents a fortress, but is simply a 
geographical expression for one portion of the five 
hundred mile line, the occupation of which, even if there 
were no military results attached to it, would have for 
the enemy the very high political value already described. 
To understand the action which is still proceeding 
wc must examine in detail the nature ot this ridge, the 
success or failure in holding which js for the moment the 
test of this great action. 
The Ridge of Louvemont. 
The elements of this position may be judged by the 
accompanying sketch. Upon the :\Vest runs, in its 
deep trench, the obstacle of the river Meuse and it 
could not be passed* by the enemy with the object of turn- 
ing this position because it is everywhere under fire of 
the French from the left bank. The water level of the 
River Meuse gives the lowest point in the ground, and wc 
will reckon heights from that water level. 
On the East is the tumbled clay plain of Woeuvre, 
the many wooded streams of which carry water levels of 
50 or 60 ft. higher than that of the Meuse. Between 
• Just in front of Vacherauville at the point marked A in the 
sketch map II there is a ford which can be used with difficulty in peace 
time, but it is under the guns of Charny ridge and at the same time 
under tlioss of, or rather just behind, the summit of Poivre. 
the Meuse and the Woeuvre rise tliose hills called " the 
Heights of the Meuse," a portion of which form the ridge 
in question. 
These hills are in sharp contrast to the plains of the 
Woeuvre below them. They rise from it very sharply 
indeed, as sharply as do the north and south downs rising 
in the escarpment from the Weald. The heights are not 
ranges of peaks, nor even rounded summits, but large 
plateaux up to which there lead from the Meuse valley on 
the one side, and from the Woeuvre plain on the other, 
steep coombes often wooded; ravines which bite deeply into 
the plateau formation. They ha\'c very steep banks. 
The plateau is not absolutely level, of course. It has 
slightly culminating points, low waves of land, as it were ; 
but the general aspect once one is up on the top of it is 
that of a plain. The highest line of this plateau linked 
together in one imaginary line forms the Fi-ench position 
covering Verdun. The main portion of it, that from the 
Meuse to Douaumont, is in immediate contact with the 
German assault. Further south the French line is still 
pushed out in front of the hills and lies parallel to their 
base through the plain at their feet. 
It will be observed from the sketch map II that the 
semicircular position from the Meuse round along the 
highest points of the hill of Poivre, passes just behind the 
village of Louvemont, comes round the little wood just 
south to the Farm of Chambrettes, thence begins to curl 
round southwards, and finally reaches the culminating 
point of the plateau of Douaumont just in front of the 
village of that name and at the point where the old Fort, 
which has now been dismantled for eighteen months, 
used to stand. 
This defensive position,'which I hav^e marked upon 
sketch II by a thick black line, rises gradually from the hill 
of Poivre to the cirJminating point where the old Fort 
of Douaimiont used to stand. The highest part of the 
Poivre ridge is not 400 feet abo\-e the river, the neck 
of land just north of Louvemont is 20 ft. higher. The 
little wood in front of the farm of Chambrette is well 
over 500 ft. above the river, indeed, nearly 600 ft., 
while the culminating point of the })lateau of Douaumont, 
where the old Fort used to stand, is 560 ft. above the 
Meuse. The plater lU further south, which has not yet 
been attacked, is of much the same nature. It continues 
to bear for sixty miles the name of "Heights of the 
Meuse." 
It will be clear from the above that the main part 
of the French pos ition, that which lias stood the tre- 
mendous assault of the last week, is, in its most general 
elements, a horsesh oe, with its culminating or terminating 
point at Douaumoj at. 
If one were i;o express it in the simplest possible 
form, eliminating ; ill the complexity of the ravines which 
intersect it, one wi juld express it as in the accompanying 
