Soissons,
dominated by the twin towers of its ancient cathedral, became a
target for the concentrated fire of the Germans, whose artillery,
it will be remembered, had been supplemented that morning by the
huge guns brought on from Maubeuge by the magnificent forced marches
of General von Zwehl. By noon the lower half of that once lovely
city was in flames. On every hand walls collapsed as though they
had been made of pasteboard. Women and children were buried beneath
the ruins or blown to pieces as they fled into the streets. One
of the towers of the cathedral was damaged, and there was not a
corner of the town that was safe from fire. The French batteries
tried to cover the city and silence the batteries opposing them
on the north front of the river, but the odds were too great.

All day long, and throughout the greater part of every night, for
the first three days of the battle of the Aisne, September 13,
14, and 15, 1914, the bombardment of Soissons was continual, and,
in addition to being a wreck, the town became a shambles.

Closely allied to the Soissons bombardment, and occurring simultaneously
with the battle of the Aisne, was the series of engagements occurring in
the quarries around Autreches and Coucy-le-Chateau, fought by advanced
bodies in front of the right wing of the German army encamped on the
ridge of the Aisne. These engagements developed the illuminating
fact that during times of peace German capital had been invested in
these quarries and that the foresight of the Germans had led them
to fortify these quarries, so that they were veritable fortresses,
and indeed, formed a continuation of that line of defense the crowning
point of which was the Aisne cliff near the plateau of the Craonne.
During the days when the British First Army Corps, under Sir Douglas
Haig, was performing the astounding feat of crossing the Aisne
and holding the land thus gained against a veritable tempest of
counterattack, these stone quarries were taken and lost again every
few hours. The French infantry of General Manoury's army, far less
exhausted than the harassed regiments of General von Kluck's forces,
found little difficulty in forcing the Germans back from Autreches,
but, no sooner were they well established, than the roar of the
combined guns of General von Kluck and General von Zwehl would
make the position untenable, and under cover of that appalling
rain of death, the German infantry would creep back to reoccupy
t