After the battle of the Marne, the crown prince's army, severely handled by the Third French Army under General Sarrail, pushed hastily toward the north and established itself on a line running perpendicularly through the Argonne Forest, at about ten or fifteen kilometers from the road connecting Ste. Menehould with Verdun. Almost immediately there developed a series of fights that lasted during a whole year and were really among the bloodiest and most murderous combats of the war. The German army in the Argonne, commanded by the crown prince, whose headquarters had long been established at Stenay, consisted of the finest German troops, including, among others, the famous Sixteenth Corps from Metz, which, with the Fifteenth Corps from Strassburg, is considered the cream of the Germanic forces. This corps was commanded by the former governor of Metz, General von Mudra, an expert in all branches of warfare relating to fortresses and mines. Specially reenforced by battalions of sharpshooters and a division of Wuerttembergers, the Twenty-Seventh, accustomed to forest warfare, this corps made the most violent efforts from the end of September, 1914, to throw the French troops back to the south and seize the road to Verdun. The crown prince evidently meant to sever this route and the adjoining highway, leading from Verdun to Ste. Menehould. The road then turns to the south and joins at Revigny, the main line of Bar-le-Duc to Paris via Chalons, forming, in fact, the only possible line of communication for the fortress of Verdun. The other line, running from Verdun to St. Mihiel, was rendered useless after the Germans had fixed themselves at St. Mihiel in September, 1914. Up to the first months of 1916 there was only a small local railway that could be used between Revigny and Ste. Menehould by Triaucourt. Of the two big lines, one was cut by the Germans, and the other was exposed to the fire of their heavy artillery. The violence of the German attacks in the Argonne prove that so long ago as September, 1914, they already dreamt of taking Verdun. Their aim was to force the French troops against Ste. Menehould and invest the fortress on three sides to bring about its fall. These Argonne battles were invested with a particular interest and originality. They were in progress for a whole year, in a thick forest of almost impenetrable brushwood, split with numerous deep ravines and abrupt, slippery precipices. The humidity of the forest is excessive, the waters pouring down from high promontories. The soldiers who struggled here practically spent two winters in the water. One can hardly imagine the courage and heroism necessary to bear the terrible hardships of fighting under such conditions. All the German soldiers made prisoners by the French describe life in the Argonne as a hideous nightmare.