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.
The stench from the unburied bodies was so great that officially all t