mentioned, which form the points of reference, are Perthes-lez-Hurlus,
Le Mesnil-lez-Hurlus, and Beauséjour Farm. The distance between the
first and the last is three and one-half miles; the front on which the
fighting has taken place is about five miles; and the French have been
attacking at one point or another in this front every day for the last
three weeks. It is, therefore, an operation of a different kind to those
which we have seen during the Winter months. Those were local efforts,
lasting a day or two, designed to keep the enemy busy and prevent him
from withdrawing troops elsewhere; this is a sustained effort, made with
the object of keeping a constant pressure on his first line of defense,
of affecting his use of the railway from Bazancourt to Challerange, a
few miles to the north, and of wearing down his reserves of men and
ammunition. It may be said that Feb. 15 marks the opening of the 1915
campaign, and that this first phase will find an important place when
the history of the war comes to be written.

We must first know something of the nature of the country, which is
entirely different to that in which the British Army is fighting. It is
one vast plain, undulating, the hills at most 200 feet higher than the
valleys, gentle slopes everywhere. The soil is rather chalky, poor,
barely worth cultivating; after heavy rain the whole plain becomes a sea
of shallow mud; and it dries equally quickly. The only features are the
pine woods, which have been planted by hundreds. From the point of view
of profit, this would not appear to have been a success; either the soil
is too poor, or else it is unsuitable to the maritime pine; for the
trees are rarely more than 25 feet high. As each rise is topped, a new
stretch of plain, a new set of small woods appear, just like that which
has been left behind.

[Illustration: ELEUTHERIOS K. VENIZELOS