Marcli 9, 1916. 
LAND AND \^' A T E R 
of this h'eight ? 
or ran when the despatch left Paris on Monday night, 
from in front of Bethincourt (which was still held) down 
to the river somewhere abont F, following the dots and 
dashes upon the plan. 
Charny Ridge. 
The immediate object, then, of this move is to clear 
the left or western bank of the river of French gun 
))ositions which render a decisive attack upon the left 
of the French main positions Poivre Hill, impossible. 
The ultimate object may be a new development upon this 
front as active and determined as that which appears 
to be now held in check upon the further front at Douau- 
mont. 
1 have said that such an ultimate object would be 
tlie turning of the main French position on the Douaumont 
heights, by an advance direct on Verdun along the 
western side of the Meuse. I have also said that the test 
of such a policy would not be the clearing of the advanced 
positions but an approach to and capture of the Ridge of 
Charny. 
\\'hat is the importance 
(i) It is the continuation of the Main position on 
tlie other side of the river. Though lower (it is only 300 feet 
above the river) it exactly prolongs the hill of Poivre. 
(2) It is the last main position on this side covering 
^'erdun. It is supplied by a railway running parallel 
behind it and is close to every form of accumulated 
supi^h'. It was the line of advanced works in the days 
when" \'erdun was a fortress. Two dismantled and 
abandoned forts stand on it to this day. 
(3) It is a united open and continuous height from 
the wood at H to the River at B with a long bare natural 
glacis sloping down northward gently without an inch 
of dead ground anywhere and enfiladed from the spur at 
K so long as this is held. 
On all these counts the reaching to and carrying of 
th'j Ridge of Charny would seem to, be here the test of 
enemy success or failure on the western bank as the 
failure to carry the ridge Poivre- jjouaumont was the tes ■. 
of failure on the eastern. 
The Difficulty of Attack by the Woeuvre. 
Meanwhile, the question has -Occurred to many 
people in this country why the German attack, if it were 
rhecked at Douaumont was not renewed further down to 
the south from the \\'oeuvre Plain, so as to turn the whole 
position round by the extreme right; There has, as we 
know, been a violent attack upon the; village at Vaux, 
and there have been some days ago attacks on I'.ix 
Station and half the village of Manheulles has ])een 
carried, 
Upon the analogy of other actionsin this wai; when 
the Germans have similarly attacked heights upon a 
narrow sector and have failed, we might expect the battle 
to extend gradually along the only line open to it— in 
this case to the south. The Meuse forbids co-operation 
between two attacks upon either side of it and one might 
imagine, indeed many critics have stated it as probable, 
that an attack foiled along the northern sector would 
try its charges further and further southward in the hope 
of effecting somewhere a breach in the defence of Verdun, 
trying for weak places in succession one after the other 
along the escarpment of the hills where they fall into the 
plain of the Woeuvre. 
That is what happened at the curiously similar 
battle of the Grand Couronne eighteen months ago when 
the Ciermans were broken in their attempt to force a 
corresponding sharp set of heights covering Nancy. 
Moreover, the fact that they attacked Vau.x without 
success upon Friday the 3rd of March, a week after their 
main assault on Douaumont was checked, might lead 
one to such a conclusion. 
But there are difficulties in working from thp 
Woeuvre up to the heights of the Meuse which are not 
apparent from the map alone, and it is the ignorance of 
these difficulties which has, I think, misled not a little of 
contemporary study on the estimation of this action. 
The Woeuvre is a mass of clay, full of marsh 9,nd 
stagnant ponds at this season of the year, and especially 
after such a winter as this, a very difficult ground of 
manoeuvre, and difficult or impossible save along special 
lines for the motor traffic and heavy guns. 1 hjive 
myself seen whole patches in it where the trenches were 
interrupted by wet land. Neither side could dig, and 
the marsh as effectively caused a gap in the lines as would 
a lake. 
Now in such a situation the only main line of attack 
possible is along tlst high roads and the made causeways 
of the railways. You can deploy troops, of course, 
over the wet land — you can make some sort of going. 
But the supply even cf small arm ammunition in a big 
amount, and virtually all your pieces, tied to these 
roads. Now the sketch map will show that these oppor- 
tunities of advance are e.xceedingly rare. To be accurate 
they are exactly four in number. 
There is the road leading to Vaux from Diejijie 
■•^which last village the French abandoned many days ago 
ri the withdrawing of their line). This road (marked 
' on the map), served for the narrow column of attack 
which attempted Vaux and failed last In-iday. 
Two miles south of this is the great main, national 
road from Paris to Longwy and Luxembourg, by wav 
of VAinn and Longuyon (one of the many places where 
the clergy were massacred in the early days of the wm) 
