After the end of 1915 the Argonne quieted down, but trench fighting and mining was always going on until the commencement of the Franco-American offensive on the 26th of September, 1918, following the American success at St. Mihiel. Among other forms of defence the Germans here used steel-wire net-screens, 3 metres high, fixed to the tree-trunks. The Americans had very hard work in getting through the forest--how severe may be judged from the fact that there are over 25,000 graves in the great American cemetery near Montfaucon; but eventually the Germans were compelled to retreat, and on the 9th of October the French from the west and the Americans from the east met at Grandpré, at the northern extremity of the forest. [Illustration: _PLATE CI._ VAUX VILLAGE. _The village lies in a hollow below the fort; its site is somewhere close to the place from which the photograph was taken. But all signs of the buildings--which were reduced to fragments early in the siege--have absolutely disappeared._] [Illustration: _PLATE CII._ DOUAUMONT FORT. _The fort of Douaumont was entered, but not held, very early in the Verdun battle, and the Kaiser telegraphed to Berlin the capture of the "key to Verdun." But the lock would not open, Verdun was not taken, and the Kaiser left it to prophesy elsewhere with equal want of success._] [Illustration: _PLATE CIII._ THE MORT HOMME. _The photograph gives only a faint idea of the shell-marked ridge whose name became so familiar to us in the Verdun campaign. Eventually a considerable part of it was taken, but the gain was useless--Verdun was as far off as ever._] [Illustration: _PLATE CIV._ THE MORT HOMME. _The French front lines on the southern slope of the Mort Homme Ridge. From these ridges the view in all directions seems to cover nothing but shell-pocked wastes, the grave of 400,000 Frenchmen and probably of very many more Germans._] [Illustration: _PLATE CV._ THE ARGONNE FOREST. _This southern part of the forest, on the road from St. Menehould to Verdun, has not been fought over, so that the trees are still in their natural condition. In the central valley, seen over the trees, lies Les Islettes in ruins. It was the farthest point of one of the Crown Prince's fruitless attempts to get south in 1915._] [Illustration: _PLATE CVI._ VARENNES. _Vavenues, on the margin of the Argonne Forest, and now in ruins, was the Crown Prince's headquarters during a considerable period, when there was every day fierce fighting with the French, of which at the time we heard very little in this country._]