the hospital
in the rear. They lived up to the full the most heroic traditions
of the old Prussian corps and they saved that whole German force
from destruction. Still, with the annihilation of the Death's Head
Hussars and the remainder of the Prussian Guards Corps on the same
day, the forces under General Foch felt that in part Rheims had
been avenged.

The other section of this second phase of the Aisne consisted of
the trench warfare, which solidified from September 19 to October 6,
1914, under conditions of extreme difficulty and more than extreme
discomfort. It was practically the establishment of a trench campaign
that lasted all winter, and revived the centuries-old fortress
warfare, applying it under modern conditions to field fortifications.
The French during that winter on the Aisne never quite succeeded
in rivaling the mechanical precision of the German movements; the
Germans, on the other hand, never showed themselves to possess
the emotional fervor of the French with the bayonet.

In many places German and Allies' trenches almost touched each
other. The first two weeks at the Aisne were one continual downpour,
and the foundation of that ground is chalk. On the sides of the
plateau of Craonne, after two weeks' rain, the chalky mud seemed
bottomless. "It filled the ears and eyes and throats of our men,"
wrote John Buchan, "it plastered their clothing and mingled generously
with their diet. Their grandfathers, who had been at Sebastopol,
could have told them something about mud; but even after India and
South Africa, the mire of the Aisne seemed a grievous affliction."
The fighting was constant, the nervous strain exhausting, and the
cold and wet were even harder to bear. There had as yet been no
time to build trenches with all conveniences, such as the Germans
possessed on the crest of the ridge, and the trenches of the Allies
were a chilled inferno of woe.

A stretch of waste ground lay between the trenches, and often for
days at a time the fire was too heavy to rescue the wounded or
bring in the dead. The men in the trenches, on either side, were
compelled to hear the groans of the wounded, lying in the open day
after day, until exhaustion, cold and pain brought them a merciful
release. In letters more than one soldier declared that the hardest
thing to bear was to hear a fellow comrade shrieking or groaning
in agony a few steps away for hours--even days at a time--and to
be able to do nothing to help