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One of the most graphic of all the accounts of the fighting of that day was from the pen of a major in the British field artillery, and it presented in sharp and vivid colors how the field artillery joined with the cavalry in clearing the German troops from the hills between the Marne and the Aisne. He wrote: "We got the order to go off and join a battery under Colonel 's orders.
The New Year of 1915 opened gently along the battle front in France below Arras. The first large movement in 1915 began on January 8, at Soissons. This city lies on both banks of the river Aisne and was in the possession of the French.
I am not going to have people saying 'what a puny little thing that baby of Rilla Blythe's is' as old Mrs. Drew said at the senior Red Cross yesterday. If I can't love you I mean to be proud of you at least." "The war will not be over before next spring now," said Dr. Blythe, when it became apparent that the long battle of the Aisne had resulted in a stalemate.
One of my sons, an officer, died in the battle of the Aisne. Others very close to me, nephews and pupils, died in Verdun and with the expeditionary army of the Orient...."
In order to gain a clear idea of what was involved in the feat of "crossing the Aisne," which more than one expert has declared to be the greatest military feat in river crossing in the history of arms, it is well to look at the topography of that point, first in its relation to the whole German line, and, second, in its relation to possible attack in September, 1914.
The attacking Spad was obviously trying to get its opponent within firing range, but the German was a first-rate pilot and dodged without losing height, banking, looping, taking advantage of the Frenchman's dead angles, and striving to get him under his machine-gun. Round and round the two airplanes circled, when suddenly the German bolted in the direction of the Aisne cliffs.
The line extends from a point north of Verdun, on the heights of the Meuse, across the wooded country of the Argonne and the plain of Champagne to Rheims, thence northwest to Brimont, crossing the Aisne near its confluence with the Suippe, and from thence proceeding to Craonne, whence it takes a westerly course along the heights of the Aisne to the Forest of the Eagle, north of Compiègne.
It began from the extreme left on the Belgian front, thence swung into the region of Souchez, then around Arras, farther on along the Aisne, particularly at the two extremities of the Aisne plateau, turned to the right in Champagne, spread to the Argonne, next in the Woevre and finally in Lorraine.
Along the Aisne the lines had not been dug in, and hourly from the front ambulances, carrying the wounded and French and British officers unwashed from the trenches, in mud-covered, bullet-scarred cars, raced down the echoing boulevards.
Only in Russia are reports of news men from the firing line allowed. One hears abroad continually of the battle of the Marne, of the battle of the Aisne, of the contest at Ypres, and the fight on the Yser, but no outside man has yet been permitted to describe any of these in detail, or to give the strategy, beginning, end, or boundaries of them, or even the distinct casualties therefrom.
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