In this large, dense wood of summer foliage, on slopes running down to marshy ground, we are to remember that the ‘stubborn defence’ was now the business of the Germans. The conditions of the war in the West had changed in several important aspects. Not merely was the enemy on the defensive, to the huge enheartenment of the Allied Forces, but this account of the natural features is necessary because the fighting was now in the open, and no longer in a too familiar entrenched area. To these changes in tactics and terrain, at once so novel and so inspiriting, was added the fresh experience of fighting side by side with new friends. General Godley’s Corps, we remember, was sent at Marshal Foch’s request right away from the British northern sector into the area of the French Command. There it found the 1st Italian Division, the 14th and the 120th French Divisions, and the 1st Colonial French Corps; and we are told that, in this War of Positions, ‘the transference to a sector with its natural obstacles, the novel situation of passing through Italian Troops to attack side by side with our French Allies in the attempt to oust enemy forces (enjoying all the advantages that the possession of the initiative and positions of great natural strength would give them) presented problems to all Arms which had hitherto been met with only in theory.’ The practical problem of language was the least. Education authorities will learn with pleasure, though some of their critics may be surprised, that ‘there were far fewer French Officers with any working knowledge of English than British Officers with a working knowledge of French, and French was the language generally used.’ Whether it was the French of Stratford-atte-Bow, or the French of the British private, ‘Tout-de-suite, and the tooter the sweeter,’ our information does not reveal; but it is satisfactory to know that the ‘working knowledge’ aimed at in our schools answered a test which experts might not have satisfied. Of other details, such as entraining and ‘embussing,’ this is not the place to speak: certain differences in practice were found, and were solved with good will on both sides. We may add here, in this list of new conditions, that the 62nd Division now included the 2/4th Hampshire Regiment, recently arrived in France, and the 1/5th Devons, lately from Egypt. On August 2nd, Major-General Braithwaite wrote to the County Territorial Associations at Southampton and Exeter respectively, to express his high sense of their several distinguished services; and he wrote at the same time to the Durham Association, in connection with the 9th Durham Light Infantry, the Pioneer Battalion of the Division, to say that it has been necessary to employ them in this Second Battle of the Marne as a fighting Battalion, and that ‘they fought magnificently, as Durham men always do.’