l occasions the Germans attempted to fly across
the French lines in force, but always with disastrous consequences.
When the French set out in squadrons to make a raid or bombard a
position they pursue the same tactics and achieve very important
results.

Early in September, 1915, General Joffre paid a visit to Rome, was
received in audience by King Victor Emmanuel, and decorated with the
highest Italian military distinction--the Grand Cross of the Military
Order of Savoy--as proof of his majesty's esteem for the French army.
General Joffre afterward made a tour of the Italian battle front and
conferred with General Cadorna.

About September 8, 1915, the Germans recommenced to attack in the
Argonne, where the German Crown Prince had failed to break the French
line in June and July. After a violent artillery preparation,
including the use of a large number of asphyxiating shells, two
infantry divisions were flung against the French. The Germans rushed
the first-line trenches at several points. Strong attacks were
launched against them and prevented any further advance.

French and British airmen raided the aviation sheds at Ostend; another
air squadron dropped sixty shells on the aviation ground at Saint
Medard and on the railway station at Dieuze, in Lorraine, twenty-five
miles northeast of Nancy. A bombardment of Zeebrugge by the British
fleet caused much damage, the Germans losing forty dead and some
hundred wounded. Here the submarine port, with two submersibles and
two guns on the harbor wall were destroyed, while the central airship
shed, containing at the time two dirigibles, was also severely
damaged. The semaphore tower was shot to pieces and some sluices
crippled. Perhaps the most exciting incident at this period was the
great allied air raid on the Forest of Houlthulst, about halfway
between Ypres and Dixmude. The forest was quite sheltered from the
ravages of the allied guns, and had been converted into a regular
garrison district, with comfortable barracks full of soldiers,
provision stores, and large munition depots. The whole camp was
brilliantly illuminated with electric light.

At ten o'clock on the night of September 9, 1915, sixty French,
British and Belgian aeroplanes started out in clear moonlight.
Immediately the aerial flotilla had announced its approach by the
well-known buzzing of sixty industrious propellers, the whole
neighborhood was plunged in sudden darkness. The moon, however,
supplie