taken place is about five miles; and the French have been attacking at one point or another in this front every day for the 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 the 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 first line of defense, 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.  It may be said that Feb. 15 marks the opening of the 1915 campaign, and that this first phase will find an important place when the history of the war comes to be written.

We must first know something of the nature of the 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 feet 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 the point of view of profit, this would not appear to 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 25 feet 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.

[Illustration:  ELEUTHERIOS K. VENIZELOS

The great Greek statesman who recently resigned as Prime Minister.

(Photo from Medom Photo Service.)]

[Illustration:  LORD HARDINGE OF PENSHURST

Who, as Viceroy, rules England’s Indian Empire during the critical period of the war.]

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 four feet 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 wagons 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 wagon to the point desired.

From the military point of view the country is eminently suitable for troops, with its possibilities of concealment, of producing sudden surprises with cavalry, and of manoeuvre generally.  It is, in fact, the training ground of the great 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.