Our regiments, therefore, were far from unfatigued at a moment when they were called upon to enter the severest phase of a struggle into which our foes hurled the flower of their troops. Moreover, the French had at their command an almost inexhaustible supply of ammunition, and were able, therefore, in a steadily ascending scale, gradually to reach the full amplitude of their fighting capacity in their efforts to break through our lines. If we fully visualize this fact then we must realize that an almost incredible glory accrues to the work done by our troops. Only an iron will, a discipline which had become second nature and utter forgetfulness of self could lead to victory in the face of such odds. That these qualities did ultimately assure us the victory will redound to the undying glory of all the troops which did active service in this great engagement. The prodigious masses of iron and humanity which our foes hurled against us day and night, their marvellous ingenuity in making attacks, their doggedness in defense, all this was admirably calculated to crush larger numbers than those of our Third Army. It was a struggle between iron and steel. It is true that a heavy mass of iron can through sheer weight bend and indent a narrow band of steel, but it cannot break the steel. Thus, through continually renewing their attacks and by training upon us an artillery fire the violence of which beggars all description, the French succeeded in bending back our lines here and there. Sometimes at one part, sometimes at another they took several hundred mètres of intrenchments; but they paid a horrible, a ghastly price in blood for these minor and valueless successes, which profited them nothing save that they taught them the bitter lesson that German will power and German discipline can be broken by nothing. The French had scornfully proclaimed that they had broken the backbone of our resistance, but we broke their attack and imposed upon them our own. In the end the French attempt to break through our lines was utterly foiled, and the Third Army was victorious. During this time the French attacks were directed principally against the left, i. e., the eastern half of the Third Army, so that the Eighth Army Corps and the Eighth Reserve Corps bore the brunt of the attacks, most of which took place along the line between the position of Perthes and Beausejour. This is a rolling, open country, in which narrow fields alternate with small patches of woodland, covered with pine trees. The country is not dissimilar in character to the country near Jueterberg and Doeberitz, in Germany, and instead of soil or sand the surface of the earth is covered with white chalk. It is a desolate, barren country. The French themselves call it the "louse Champagne" country, and never was a name more aptly given. It boasted of only a few settlements, and these have now been destroyed by the artillery fire.