I went down to the Marne Valley yesterday afternoon and from the edge
of a wooded hill looked across over part of the north bank where
the Germans are established. Established is hardly the word, for
everything is floating and provisional in this phase of the war, and
it is more than ever invisible except where infantry actions are in
course, because there are no fixed intrenched lines. I could not find
any trace of the enemy on the opposite amphitheatre of hills, but an
observer hanging above at the tail of a sausage balloon may have seen
something, for from time to time the French guns blazed angrily over my
head and buildings were on fire in the villages.
In this winding stretch of the valley crests rise 500 feet above the
broad, strong stream, and there are five or six miles between the two
ridges. The French have guns and machine guns in position, and any
considerable attempt to cross will be very costly.
Two hundred Germans came over yesterday morning and are now more or
less contented guests of the French Republic. But the enemy does not
seem to contemplate an immediate passage, if at all. It would probably
be tried further west at some point where the northern hills are more
dominant. The section of the important objectives appears to lie in
this direction.
Immediately behind the zone of mutual observation, all the humming
activities of arms are proceeding with a freedom unknown in the days
of trench warfare, partly because this is the nature of the war of
movement and partly because, like other services, the air squadrons
are dispersed and the German airmen cannot obtain more than local
and momentary equality. And amid all the flow of troops and guns,
the pitching of camps, the laying of field telegraphs, shifting of
hospitals and hangars, bringing up of munitions and supplies, there is
an air of calm over the whole scene that would astonish those who see
the offensive only as it is concentrated in a newspaper sheet.