ihiel salient--"the hernia," as the French call it--begins at
the Bois-le-Pretre. Pivoting on The Wood, the lines turn sharply inland,
cross the desolate plateau of La Woevre, attain the Meuse at
Saint-Mihiel, turn again, and ascend the river to the Verdunois. The
salient, as dangerous for the Germans as it is troublesome for the
French, represents the limit of a German offensive directed against Toul
in October, 1914. That the French retreated was due to the fact that the
plateau was insufficiently protected, many of the regiments having been
rushed north to the great battle then raging on the Aisne.

Only one railroad center lies in the territory of the salient,
Thiaucourt in Woevre. This pleasant little moorland town, locally famous
for its wine, is connected with Metz by two single-track railroad lines,
one coming via Conflans, and the other by Arnaville on the Moselle. At
Vilcey-sur-Mad, these lines unite, and follow to Thiaucourt the only
practicable railroad route, the valley of the Rupt (brook) de Mad.

Thus the domination of Thiaucourt, or the valley of the Rupt de Mad, by
French artillery would break the railroad communications between the
troops keeping the salient and their base of supplies, Metz. And the
fate of Metz itself hangs on the control of the Bois-le-Pretre.

Metz is the heart of the German organization on the western front: the
railroad center, the supply station, the troop depot. A blow at Metz
would affect the security of every German soldier between Alsace and the
Belgian frontier. But if the French can drive the Germans out of the
Bois-le-Pretre and establish big howitzers on the crest the Germans are
still holding, there will soon be no more Metz. The French guns will
destroy the city as the German cannon destroyed Verdun.

When the Germans, therefore, retired to the trenches after the battles
of September and October, 1914, they took to the ground on the heights
of the Bois-le-Pretre, a terrain far enough ahead of Thiaucourt and Metz
to preserve these centers from the danger of being shelled. On the crest
of the highest ridge along the valley, admirably ambushed in a thick
forest, they waited for the coming of the French. And the French came.

They came, young and old, slum-dweller and country schoolmaster, rich
young noble and Corsican peasant, to the storming of the wood, upheld by
one vision, the unbroken, grassy slope that stretched from behind the
German lines to the town of Thiaucou