I propose to give some account of the operations which have been in progress for the last three weeks in Champagne. Every day since Feb. 15 the official communiqués find something to say about a district which lies midway between Rheims and Verdun. The three places which are always mentioned, which form the points of reference, are Perthes-lez-Hurlus, Le Mesnil-lez-Hurlus, and Beauséjour Farm. The distance between the first and the last is three and one-half miles; the front on which the fighting has 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.]