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Along the Aisne the line of our Division stretched from Venizel to the bridge of Conde.  You must not think of the river as running through a gorge or as meandering along the foot of slopes rising directly from the river bank.  On the southern side lie the Heights of Champagne, practically a tableland.  From the river this tableland looks like a series of ridges approaching the valley at an angle.  Between the foothills and the river runs the Soissons-Rheims road, good pave, and for the most part covered by trees.  To the north there is a distance of two miles or so from the river to the hills.

Perhaps I shall make this clearer if I take the three main points about the position.

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First. If you are going to put troops on the farther side of the river you must have the means of crossing it, and you must keep those means intact.  The bridges running from left to right of our line were at Venizel, Missy, Sermoise, and Conde.  The first three were blown up.  Venizel bridge was repaired sufficiently to allow of light traffic to cross, and fifty yards farther down a pontoon-bridge was built fit for heavy traffic.  Missy was too hot:  we managed an occasional ferry.  I do not think we ever had a bridge at Sermoise.  Once when in search of the C.R.E.  I watched a company of the K.O.S.B. being ferried across under heavy rifle fire.  The raft was made of ground-sheets stuffed, I think, with straw.  Conde bridge the Germans always held, or rather neither of us held it, but the Germans were very close to it and allowed nobody to cross.  Just on our side of the bridge was a car containing two dead officers.  No one could reach them.  There they sat until we left, ghastly sentinels, and for all I know they sit there still.

Now all communication with troops on the north bank of the river had to pass over these bridges, of which Venizel alone was comparatively safe.  If ever these bridges should be destroyed, the troops on the north bank would be irrevocably cut off from supplies of every sort and from orders.  I often used to wonder what would have happened if the Germans had registered accurately upon the bridges, or if the river had risen and swept the bridges away.

Second. There was an open belt between the river and the villages which we occupied—­Bucy-le-Long, St Marguerite, Missy.  The road that wound through this belt was without the veriest trace of cover—­so much so, that for a considerable time all communication across it was carried on by despatch riders, for a cable could never be laid.  So if our across-the-river brigades had ever been forced to retire in daylight they would have been compelled, first to retire two miles over absolutely open country, and then to cross bridges of which the positions were known with tolerable accuracy to the Germans.

Third. On the northern bank four or five spurs came down into the plain, parallel with each other and literally at right angles to the river.  The key to these was a spur known as the Chivres hill or plateau.  This we found impregnable to the attack of two brigades.  It was steep and thickly wooded.  Its assailants, too, could be heavily enfiladed from either flank.