1914, they already dreamt of taking Verdun. Their
aim was to force the French troops against Ste. Menehould and invest
the fortress on three sides to bring about its fall.

These Argonne battles were invested with a particular interest and
originality. They were in progress for a whole year, in a thick forest
of almost impenetrable brushwood, split with numerous deep ravines and
abrupt, slippery precipices. The humidity of the forest is excessive,
the waters pouring down from high promontories. The soldiers who
struggled here practically spent two winters in the water.

One can hardly imagine the courage and heroism necessary to bear the
terrible hardships of fighting under such conditions. All the German
soldiers made prisoners by the French describe life in the Argonne as
a hideous nightmare.

From the end of September, 1914, the Germans delivered day and night
attacks, generally lasting ten days. These attacks were made with
forces of three or four battalions up to a division or a division and
a half. In each attack the Germans aimed at a very limited
objective--to capture the first or second line of trenches, to seize
some particular fortified point. That object once attained, the
Germans held on there, consolidated the occupied terrain, fortified
their new positions and prepared for another push forward. It was thus
by a process of nibbling the French trenches bit by bit that the
Germans hoped to attain the Verdun-Ste. Menehould line.

The tactics employed in these combats were those suited to forest
fighting; sapping operations methodically and minutely carried out to
bring the German trenches as near as possible to the French; laying
small mines to be exploded at a certain hour. Two or three hours
before an attack the French positions were bombarded by trench mortars
and especially heavy mine throwers.

At the short distances the effect would naturally be to cause
considerable damage; trenches and their parapets were demolished,
shelters, screening reserves, were torn open. At that moment when the
attack is to be launched, the German artillery drops the "fire
curtain" behind the enemy trenches to prevent reenforcements from
arriving. Such are the tactics almost constantly employed by the
Germans.

Despite their most furious efforts during the winter of 1914 and the
spring and summer of 1915, in at least forty different attacks, the
German gains were very insignificant, and if one considers the line
they