valley of the Meuse, from Commercy past St. Mihiel to Troyon, and as a rule they were not able to use it except at night. The Germans were better off. They commanded, to begin with, a line from Metz along the Moselle to Arnaville, from which it turned westwards along the Rupt de Mad to Thiaucourt. Half-way between these two places it was joined by another line running due south from Briey, and as their position was consolidated at least one other light railway was constructed in the direction of St. Mihiel. There was also another railway (a section of the Verdun-Commercy line) which runs south from Fresnes along the east edge of the Hauts de Meuse to Heudicourt, half-way between St. Mihiel and Thiaucourt, part of which was available for German traffic, besides a fairly large supply of level roads all through the district, and of these various facilities for transport they made excellent use. In the plain of the Woevre behind the Fresnes-Heudicourt line everything worked with the precision of a huge machine. During and after the bombardment of the river forts the scene was more like the surroundings of an immense centre of industrial activity than the ordinary conception of a battlefield. From their emplacements between the infantry lines German and Austrian field-guns and siege artillery pounded away incessantly at the forts with 8¼-inch, 12-inch, and even 16½-inch shells. Observation balloons and occasional aeroplanes swayed and hovered over the lines, and ragged fan-shaped columns of brown or white smoke shot up into the air here and there as the charges of high explosives and shrapnel from French or German guns fell and burst. But apart from these inevitable and unconcealable signs of battle—noise and pillars of smoke by day, noise and flashes of flame by night—all the machinery of the fighting was hidden underground, and as far as eye could see the plain looked unpeopled and deserted. Only in the rear the supply trains constantly rolling up from the German base and the methodical work of the men loading and firing the guns and recording the effect of the shots, like shifts of artisans labouring round the furnaces of a gigantic mill, spoke of life and energy. But in appearance it was always the creative energy of a busy manufacturing district rather than the destructive energy of war.