"After months of waiting, which have enabled us to increase our forces and our resources, while the adversary has been using up his own, the hour has come to attack and conquer and to add fresh glorious pages to those of the Marne and Flanders, the Vosges and Arras. "Behind the whirlwind of iron and fire let loose, thanks to the factories of France, where your brothers have, night and day, worked for us, you will proceed to the attack, all together, on the whole front, in close union with the armies of our allies. "Your _elan_ will be irresistible. It will carry you at a bound up to the batteries of the adversary, beyond the fortified lines which he has placed before you. "You will give him neither pause nor rest until victory has been achieved. "Set to with all your might for the deliverance of the soil of la Patrie, for the triumph of justice and liberty. "J. JOFFRE." The general outlines of the plan of campaign may be briefly described: The British were to deliver a main attack on the German trenches between Lens and La Bassee, in close cooperation with the French on their immediate right in Artois, and to hold the enemy by secondary attacks and demonstrations on the rest of the (British) front, about eighty miles. The French, for their part, took in hand the two principal operations--to batter through in Artois and to exert their mightiest efforts in Champagne. [Illustration: Zigzag trenches in Champagne. The strip on which the armies are clinched varies in width and winds over dunes, marshes, woods and mountains.] To a proper understanding of a campaign or a battle, some knowledge of the topographical conditions is essential. The chief scene in the act--where the grand attack falls--is the beautiful vineyard region of Champagne. Here the German front is the same as they established and fortified it after the Battle of the Marne. It rests on the west side on the Massif de Moronvillers; to the east it stretches as far as the Argonne. It was intended to cover the railroad from Challerange to Bazancourt, a line indispensable for the concentration movements of the German troops. The offensive front, which extends from Auberive to the east of Ville-sur-Tourbe, presents a varied aspect. From east to west may be seen, firstly, a glacis or sloping bank about five miles wide and covered with little woods. The road from Saint-Hilaire to Saint-Souplet, with the Baraque de l'Epine de Vedegrange, marks approximately its axis. [Illustration: The Champagne District.] (2) The hollow, in which lies the pretty village of Souain and where the first German line follows its edge. The road from Souain to Pomme-Py describes the radius of this semicircle. The farm of Navarin stands on the top of the hills two miles north of Souain.