An officer of the 81st Regiment of Infantry which captured Mort-Homme writes as follows: “ ... and on the hill where the 81st Regiment is encamped, what an accumulation of defensive agencies! Wire, tunnels, trenches, observatories, shelters of every description, machine-gun posts, light cannon, nothing is lacking. To these ordinary means of defence, other extraordinary ones had been added, consisting of three immense and very deep subterranean systems (82 steps led down to one and the length of another exceeded one kilometre) provided with ventilators, Decauville narrow-gauge railways, electricity, posts of command and relief, rooms for the men, and stores for food, arms, munitions, and material. All these extraordinary fortifications could not resist the impetuous assault of our troops, which had been preceded by a six-day bombardment so intense that the entire first line was enveloped in a thick cloud of smoke about two hundred metres high, and the ground shook all the time.” In fact, no absolutely impregnable shelter has yet been devised, and the story of fortification is but a repetition of the story of defensive naval armament. The thicker the plates of the dreadnoughts, the more powerful the guns are made, and the guns have the last word. Moreover, it has been by no means demonstrated that the German intrenchments, which have cost enormous sums, and an amount of human labour that the Allies would have been unable to furnish, have to any extent reduced the enemy’s losses. On the contrary, it appears that the temporary protection afforded by such works is more than offset by the great losses in men and material which is the result of their final destruction. The official reports which reach us, just before going to press, of the French victory of the 23d-25th of October, 1917, on the Aisne, prove that, in the captured salient (which the Germans had considered of capital importance), they had accumulated means of defence more considerable and powerful than at any point hitherto conquered. At the inhabited points, they had converted all the cellars of the houses into bombproofs. They had bored tunnels of communication, some of which were a mile long. Everywhere they had built formidable concrete dugouts connected by covered passages loopholed for machine-guns, and had even mounted heavy pieces of artillery in their first lines. The whole position was considered so impregnable that they had stored in its subterranean spaces a very large quantity of winter supplies. The topography of the region was unusually favourable to the construction of defensive works, and a number of natural grottoes had been turned to good account.