two fortress lines, developed and improved for four months; or that he
would have to carry out an attack modeled on the same system as that
employed in the last great siege undertaken by French troops, that of
Sebastopol in 1855? Yet this is what is being done. Every day an attack
is made on a trench, on the edge of one of the little woods or to gain
ground in one of them; every day the ground gained has to be transformed
so as to give protection to its new occupants and means of access to
their supports; every night, and on many days, the enemy's
counter-attacks have to be repulsed.

Each attack has to be prepared by a violent and accurate artillery fire;
it may be said that a trench has to be morally captured by gun fire
before it can be actually seized by the infantry. Once in the new
trench, the men have to work with their intrenching tools, without
exposing themselves, and wait for a counter-attack, doing what damage
they can to the enemy with hand grenades and machine guns. Thus the
amount of rifle fire is very small; it is a war of explosives and
bayonets.

Looking at the battle at a distance of about 2,000 yards from the
enemy's line, the stillness of what one sees is in marked contrast to
the turmoil of shells passing overhead. The only movement is the cloud
of smoke and earth that marks the burst of a shell. Here and there long
white lines are visible, when a trench has brought the chalky subsoil up
to the top, but the number of trenches seen is very small compared to
the number that exist, for one cannot see into the valleys, and the top
of the ground is an unhealthy place to choose for seating a trench. The
woods are pointed out, with the names given them by the soldiers, but it
needs fieldglasses to see the few stumps that remain in those where the
artillery has done its work. And then a telephone message arrives,