1. A \ D AND ^^' A T E R 
March o. I0i6. 
ATTACK ON WEST OF THE MEUSE. 
By Hilaire Belloc. 
WITH Monday, the fiftccntli day of this great 
battle of Verdun, and the seventeenth since 
the cannonade first opened, the German 
offensive developed a new feature, the fate 
of which only the future can determine, the motive of 
which we can <Mily estimate. 
I suggest that this motive is. immediately, to free 
the ground in front of Poi\re Hill from French artillery 
fire and so permit a -direct attack there unmolested 
upon its flank. Ultimately, if the push is unexjjectedU- 
successful and rapid, to turn the main position which the 
I'Vench have'now sucoessfulK' held for so manv davs 
frnni Uras to Douaumont. 
It is clear that an ad\ance along the Western >ide 
of the Meusc up to \'erdun would turn the main position 
from- Bras to Douaumont ; that is, would get behind 
and rend cr it untenable. The now large French force on 
that main position would have to retireor would be lost. 
The emniy's success or failure in this main or ulti- 
mate object, does not depend upon his capture of the 
advanced lines upon the (ioose Crest or behind Chattan- 
court. I It depends upon his approach to and seizing of 
the height marked on my map with a thieli black line H^li. 
und Inioun in that country side as Charny Ridge. 
1 will take these points in their order. 
The First Advance. 
If the reader will look at the general map printed 
over page, which I must make tlie general reference 
for the whole of this article, he will percei\-e that from 
the point marked A where there is a small, pronounced 
bend in the Mcuse v'wqv, to the point marked B nearly 
h miles away, a sinuous succession of heights from two 
to three hundred feet abo\-e the le\e] of the stream com- 
mands its left bank. 
In the first phase of the battle the enemy attacked 
a thin F'rcnch covering line which lay from the \illage 
of Brabant opposite the point " A," ran through the 
wood and in front of the village of Hauniont, then tluough 
the big wood of Caures and so Xo Herbebois Wood and 
in front of Ornes to " C." By successive retirements 
(as we have seen) the French on the Thursday night, the 
fourth day of their retreat, the 24th of February, had 
reached their main position nmning from the \illage 
of Bras along the crest beliind the \illage of Louvemont 
and so in a horseshoe to the plateau, village and fort 
of Douaumont. This main position I liave indicated by 
a line of crosses upon the map. All this German advance 
was pursued along the right or eastern bank of the river 
Meuse, with the result that the Frendi batteries upon the 
sinuous line of hills across the stream commanded all the 
coimrty occupied by the Germans in their ad\ance and 
abandoned by tlie French in their retirement. French 
batteries posted everywhere among these hills swept the 
castcili country beyond the river in the lines of the 
arrows and rendered the ground very diflicult for con- 
tinuous enemy action. The only relief from this dominat- 
ing fire was found, first in the \ery hea\y bombardment 
to which the Germans subjected the French batteries 
on this western side, secondly, of course, in the di.gging of 
trenches by night to shelter the German troops occupying 
the eastern side, and thirdly in the portions of grciund 
which lay behind the slopes and were sheltered from the 
shells. But all these three combined did not prevent 
German action in this newly occupi(>d belt being gravely 
hampered, and in particular the Cote du Poivre or 
Pepper Hill,' the capture of which would have turned 
the whole F'rench position, could not be successfully 
assailed. The French position ujwn it held firm because 
all the valley in front running u]> from V'aucherauville 
and the hill called Talou was untenable under the French 
enfilading fire from the further bank. 
If the French had held their first line in strength as 
the Germans chd in Champagne five months ago. and 
had the Germans broken this first line, which thev j^ro- 
bably believed to constitute the main French front (the 
ilnc A-C from Brabant to Ornes), then the fact that the 
French still held the western side of the Meuse woukl 
have been of little advantage to them or hurt to the enemy. 
The front once broken the whole I'Vench line would 
have had to retire. At the worst a fatal gap would iia\«- 
appeared in it. at the best it would ha\e had to fall back 
behind Verdun. But of cmirse, the French were followin.,' 
anentirely diflerent tactic, as we now know. So far from 
attempting io hold their foremost positions in strength, 
they left the smallest number of men possible to cover a 
successive retreat and did not projiose to stand until the 
main jxi.-iition, the ridge from Bra> Village to the l^latiau 
of Douaiuuont was reached. Therefore the German 
advance between the very foremost French lines at At" 
and the main position on the hor.seshoe ridge between 
Bras and Douaumont, an advance covering about one 
mile a day at the broadest, as it did not so much as shake 
the I-'rench line, left the l-'rcnch beyond the river quite 
free to pound all that belt from the further bank of the 
Meuse. The French batteries lying behind t he hills and in 
the woods of the Goose Ridge, of Chattancourt of Mai re, 
etc., and their fire observed and corrected from (h:- 
summits, continually shelled the ground beyond the 
stream at effective ranges of from _; to 8 thousand yards. 
This, as we ha\c just seen, rendering the capture of 
the hill of Pfjivre impossible, the great (ierman effort 
was launched on Douaimiont Plateau upon Saturday thi? 
26th of February and nearly succeeded, coming uj) the 
ravine marked R-R on the map. Such an attack was 
quite Tuimolested by the F'rench guns on the West of the 
Meuse, and moreover had it succeeded would have cut 
off all the h'rench upon the main ])osition and would have 
invohed the destruction of the force there occupied. 
The fate of that attack we know. It got no further than 
Douaumont Fort and Douaumont Village where it now 
stands apparently checked and lea\ing the French main 
position intact. The battle reached tliis final form last 
Saturday night, ^larch 4th, and remained in the same 
situation on Sunday, March 5tli. For ten days the belt 
of territory between Brabant and Poivre Hill had lain 
largely at the mercy of the F-rench guns upon the further 
or western bank of the Meuse. If the attack by Douau- 
mont was to fail there remained the possibility of again 
combining it with an attack upon Poivre Hill, if only 
the belt in front of Poivre Hill, particularly the Hill of 
Talou, could be saved the menace of French lire from the 
other side of the river. With the immediate object of 
achieving this, the enemy last Monday at the opening of 
the third week of tlie great struggle began his first infantry 
attack upon the left or western bank of the Meuse. 
There happened there exactly what happened in the 
initial great effort east of the river. The I'rcnch front 
line had run before the battle from D to A, just in front 
of the village of Forges. The Germans carried that 
position upon Monday morning and apparently upon the 
same day before the evening, attacked the long ridge 
called the Cote De I'Oie or "Goose Crest." Before 
evening thev had carried RegncHille and then tackled 
the hill itself. 
This crest (from' winch you dominate all the northern 
part of the belt the Germans had just occupied beyond 
the ri\-er) is a fairly level ridge with two rather higher 
summits at either end, 4,000 yards apart. That mwx 
Regni(-\ille. some 250 feet above the Meuse, is called 
Hill 265 from its "height in metres above the sea ; the 
other summit about 66 fefet higher is called the Mort 
Homme. The enemy launched a division at Hill 265 
and carried it. Early the, next morning they were in 
occu])ation of the wood of C'orbeau.\ or " C ow Wood " 
at the foot of the Mort Homme. 
So far and no: further goes the news received in 
London at the moment of writing this, Tuesday after- 
noon. The heights directly overlooking the occupied 
belt beyond the rivci- from A to as far as E are no longer 
under the direct observation of the French gunners, and 
the French line upon the western side of the Meuse runs. 
