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Well, at last, the atmosphere on the hilltop is all changed. We have a cantonnement de régiment again, and this time the most interesting that we have ever had, the 23d Dragoons, men on active service, who are doing infantry work in the trenches at Tracy-le-Val, in the Forêt de Laigue, the nearest point to Paris, in the battle-front.
On January 18, 1915, a savage attack by the Germans was successfully repulsed at Tracy-le-Val and on the 19th the French made an assault upon the German position at St. Mihiél, in the Verdun section without gaining any ground.
Beginning on the 17th with an attack on a ten-mile front between Tracy-le-Val and Vingre he had steadily pushed on until by the 23rd his left flank held the Oise as far as its junction with the Ailette and his front faced the latter canalized river as far as Guny. By the 29th he was across the Ailette and threatening to turn the whole German position south of the Somme at Chauny.
He would dart no more above the paternal mansion, announcing his victories by his caracoles in the air; nor watch over his own household during his patrol of the region beyond Compiègne, over Noyon, Chauny, Coucy, and Tracy-le-Val.
A surprise attack in the region of Moulin-sous-Toutvent resulted in the capture of a dozen prisoners. A similar operation in the region of Tracy-le-Val between the Oise and the Aisne was also a victory for French arms. The Germans fought with determination, but were unable to make any headway against the indomitable French spirit.
The front of the Sixth Army to which he was attached, extending from Ribécourt beyond the forest of Laigue, passed in front of Railly and Tracy-le-Val, hollowed itself before the enemy salient of Moulin-sous-Touvent, straightened itself again near Autrèches and Nouvron-Vingré, covered Soissons, whose very outskirts were menaced, was obliged to turn back on the left bank of the Aisne where the enemy took, in January, 1915, the bridge-head at Condé, and Vailly and Chavonne, and crossed the river again at Soupir which belonged to us.
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