LAND AND WATER 
March 23, 1916. 
Details of Mort Homme Posilion 
which the enemy has been operating. It is a fortnight ago 
since he finally got hold of the Crows' Wood, which runs 
up the slope and reaches in most places near to the ridge 
of, and in some places over the Goose Crest, and it was in 
the cover of that wood, such as it is, that the efforts wc 
are about to follow were made. 
We note north-west, north and north-cast of the 
summit of the Mort Homme, a country road passing over 
the hills, which is that leading from the region of Bethin- 
court to the village of Cumieres, and this road we marked 
on Sketch III with the letters R R R. The French trench 
system at the moment when the attacks began, exactly 
a week ago, on March 14th (these lines are written on the 
Tuesday afternoon, March 21st) ran roughly parallel to 
and in front of this road. We must further particularly 
note on Sketch IV the subsidiary height at A, which is 
called height 265. It is a sHght rise upon the shoulder of 
the Mort Homme. When you look from the back of the 
Mort Homme northwards and eastwards, in such a direc- 
tion as the arrow on Sketch IV, you see this hump on the 
shoulder of the Mort Homme itself peeping up to the left. 
It is called Hill 265 from its height in metres above the 
sea. The summit proper (at B) of the Mort Homme, 
which is 1,200 yards south-east of it, is called hill 295, 
being 295 metres above the sea, and therefore, roughly, 
100 English feet above A. 
For the Germans to attack and carry the point A 
and hold it solidly would be a step of importance in their 
plan against the Mort Homme for two reasons. In the 
first place it would make a gap in the French trench line, 
and secondly, it would begin to turn the positions of the 
Mort Homme. From A eastwards towards C the ground 
falls away towards the valley of the brook which bounds 
these heights upon the west, and is therefore open to a 
further advance. 
The Germans, therefore, have tried and perhaps arc 
still trying, to carry A rather than to carry the more 
difficult, higher and steeper approaches at B. They arc 
also trying to get round by Avocourt to the height 304, 
which commands the Mort Homme from the east. 
It was upon Tuesday, March 14th, that the 
Germans, who had just completed their second and final 
occupation of the Crows' Wood, brought up reinforcements 
and left that cover to carry, if they could, this height 
265, A, to the north-west of the Mort Homme. 
As you come out of the western extremity of the 
Crows' Wood you see hill 265 upon your right, standing 
out somewhat in front of the summit of the Mort Homme 
like a flatfish lump on a shelf : about 100 ft. lower than 
that summit, as I have said, and rather more than half a 
mile from it. 
The Germans, after a violent artillery preparation of 
some thirty-six hours, struck up as far as the French 
trenches in successive waves, the total numbers of which 
were equivalent to about a division, aiming all along the 
French line in front of the road, but particularly heavily 
towards their own right and hill 265, at A. 
Their concentration, which had taken place during 
the Tuesday night and early morning, had not been well 
concealed, and was caught more than once by the French 
artillery. But tlvc forces which attacked that Tuesday 
afternoon were sufficiently strong to reach the trenches 
just mentioned. 
The enemy for almost the first time in these Verdun 
attacks, attenuated a reasonably open order with the men 
at inter^•als of about two metres, and the main attack was 
flanked to the right and to the left with the strength of 
about a brigade upon either side. It is estimated that 
the total numbers moving up the slopes from near 
Bethincourt on the extreme German right to the men upon 
the height of the Goose Crest to the extreme German left, 
were some 23,000. With what covering of troops the 
French met this attack we are, of course, not told. 
The two flanking brigades were badly punished, b\it 
the main attack, as I have said, consisting of five succes- 
sive waves of men, following each other at about 100 yards 
interval, succeeded in setting foot in the French trench at 
two separate points, each of them upon the slope of this 
shelf called " 265," and presumably at about E and F. 
The two points thus rushed were salients in the line, and 
their combined length was about 160 yards. When dark- 
ness fell upon the Tuesday night the Germans remained 
in possession of these points, and were presumably con- 
solidating the ground between them and the Crow Wood. 
Upon the Wednesday, the day following, the details 
of this attack having been communicated to Berlin, the 
publicity bureau in that capital described the event as 
" the capture of the Mort Homme." The description 
was, of course, quite false, and constitutes the second novel 
procedure of this kind, the first being the reported capture 
of the fort of Vaiix. 
German "Errors" 
I suggested last week the probable errors which had 
given rise to the false communique about the fort of 
Vaux, but I am not sure after this last piece of false news 
that this suggestion does not require revision. The con- 
ditions of the attack of last Tuesday were quite different 
from the attack on Vaux. The thing took place in broad 
daylight, and the German assault progressed only quite a 
little way and did not come within half a mile of the 
point falsely claimed. Moreover, the Mort Homme is 
a position with which thousands of the enemy's students 
of the war in private life are now thoroughly well ac- 
quainted, and it has been minutely described in the 
German Press. There is no possibility of confusing it 
with another point, as there was the possibility of confusing 
the fort of Vaux properly so called with the two Hardau- 
niont redoubts just north of Vaux village. The Mort 
Homme is an isolated, dominating summit, separate from 
everything around it, and lending itself to no confusion 
at all. It looks therefore as though the false commu- 
nique were, in this case at least, deliberate, and as though 
the enemy had some particular political reason for giving 
out what he believed would be soon accomplished 
as something already accomplished. 
At any rate, after another pause of two days and 
another bombardment, he made, on Thvu-sday, the i6th, a 
very serious effort to turn this false communique into 
tiie truth. In the inter\-al the French had all but clefired 
the two small salients which the Germans had occupied, 
and by the Thursday morning only a few yards were left 
in the hands of the enemy. 
During the Wednesday night, and all the Thursday 
morning the very violent bombardment of the whole 
slope made it probable that the enemy were going to 
attack again ; and a little after three o'clock on the after- 
noon that day, Thursday the i6th, the second great' attack 
was delivered in force at least as strong as that which 
had failed forty-eight hours before. 
Why these efforts are made in broad daylight and 
late in the day only those on the spot can determine. At 
any rate this second attack — which w^s an exact repeti- 
tion of that of the Tuesday, iWe waves of men charging 
at miich the same distances as before — filled the space 
between the wood and the French main trench. 
Tiiis second effort completely failed. It was caught 
by a very violent curtain fire from the French field gims 
and there seem to have been constituted between the 
