IN THE CHAMPAGNE.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 October 1915, Page 8

IN THE CHAMPAGNE.

WHERE THE FRENCH ARE ADVANCING. THE COUNTRY. DESCRIBED. I After the big French- offensive in Champagne during February and March, the Press Bureau issued an account of an official observer with the French forces, describing the country and the results achieved.

The three places which are always mentioned, which form the points of reference, said the observer, are Perthes-lez-Hurlus, Lo Mesnil-lez-Hurlus and Beausejour Farm. The distance between the first and the last is three and a half miles; the front on which the fighting took place is about five miles; and the French have been attacking at one point or another in this front every day for (he last three weeks. It is, therefore, an operation of a different kind to those which we have seen during the winter months. Those were local efforts, lasting a day or two, designed to keep tlie enemy busy, and prevent him from withdrawing troops elsewhere; this is a sustained effort, made with the object of keeping a constant pressure on his fir3t line of defence, of affecting his use of the railway from Bazancourt to Challerange, a few miles to the north, and of wearing down his reserves of men and ammunition.

We must know something of the nature of this country, which is entirely different to that in which the British Army is fighting. It is one vast plain, undulating, the hills at most 200 ft higher than the valleys, gentle slopes everywhere. The soil is rather chalky, poor, barely worth cultivating; after heavy rain, the whole plain becomes a sea of shallow mud; and it dries equally quickly. The only features are the pine woods, which have been planted by hundreds. From (lie point of view of profit, this would not appear tp have been a success; either the soil is too poor, or else it is unsuitable to the maritime pine; for the trees are rarely more than 25ft high. As each rise is topped, a new stretch of plain, a new set of small woods appear, just like that which has been left behind.

A GOOD TRAINING GROUND. The villages are few and small, most of them are in ruins after the fighting in September; and the troops live almost entirely in colonies of little huts of wood or straw, about 4ft high, dotted about in the woods, in the valleys, wherever a little water and shelter is obtainable. Lack of villages means lack of roads; this has been one of the great difficulties to be faced; but at the same time, the movement of waggons across country is possible to a far greater extent than in Flanders, although it is often necessary to use eight or ten horses to get a gun or waggon to the point desired. From the military point of view, the country i 3 eminently suitable for troops, with its possibilities of concealment, of producing sudden surprises with cavalry, and of manoeuvre generally. It is, in fact, tlie training ground of the groat

military centre of Chalons; and French troops have doubtless been exercised over this ground in every branch of military operation, except that in which they are engaged at the present moment. That commander, training his men over this ground, could have imagined that the area from Perthes-lez-Hurlus to Beausejour Farm would become two fortress lines, developed and improved for many months; or that he would have to cary out an attack modelled on the same system as that employed in the last great siege of Sebastopol in 1855? Yet this is what is being done. Every day an attack is made on a trench, on the edge of one of the little woods or to gain ground in one of them; every day the ground gained has to be transformed so as to give protection to its new occupants and means of access to their supports; every night, and on many days, the enemy's counter-attacks have to be repulsed.

Each attack has to be prepared by a violent and accurate artillery fire; it may be said that a trench has to be morally captured by gun fire before it can be actually seized by tlie infantry. Once in the new trench, the men have to work with their entrenching tools, without exposing themselves, and wait for a counter-attack, doing what damage they can to the enemy with hand grenades and machine guns. Thus the amount of rifle lire is very small; it is a war of explosives and bayonets.

LITTLE TO SEE. Looking at the battle at a distance of about 2000 yards from tlie enemy's line, the stillness of what one sees" is in marked contrast to the turmoil of shells passing overhead. The only movement is the cloud of smoke and earth that marks the burst of a shell. Here and there long white lines arc visible, when a trench has brought the chalky subsoil up to the top; but the number of trenches seen is very small compared to the number that exist, for one cannot see into the valleys, and the top of the ground is an unhealthy place to choose for seeing a trench." The woods are pointed out, with the names given them by the soldiers; but it needs field glasses to sec the few stumps that remain in those where the artillery ha< done its work. And then a telephone message arrives, saying that the enenu are threatening a counter-attack at a certain point; and three minutes later there is a redoubled whistling of shells. At first one cannot see the result of this fire—the guns are searching the low ground where the enemy's reserves arc preparing for the movement: but a little later tlie ground in front of the threatened trench becomes alive with shell bursts, for the searching lias uiven place to flic building un of a wall of fire through which it i 3" impossible for the foe to pass without enormous loss. The German trenches were protected by a network of barbed wire. Blockhouses, often of concrete, dotted the front, and in all the woods field guns and machine guns were stationed. It was against these fortifications that the French hurled themselves again and again. After three weeks of fighting, the total gain to the French varied from 200 yards, near Perthes, to 1400 yards, between Le Mesni] and Beausejour.