Genuine mountain battles.
This strip of broken table-land becomes broader again farther upstream, above Dormans and Châtillon-sur-Marne. In that direction the plateau of the Ile de France ascends until it is more than 260 metres above the stream. Erosion has been even more active there, and in that part of the Tardenois the plateau is dissected into narrow strips separated by deep valleys, broad and moist, the largest of which is the valley of the Ardre. In the valley bottoms the streams are bordered by bands of tillage land; above, on the lower slopes, amid the vineyards and orchards which monopolize all the favorable exposures, is a multitude of small villages, some of which have become famous—Ste. Euphraise, Bligny, and Ville-en-Tardenois, whose rustic dwellings of uncut rubble, arranged amphitheatre-wise, sheltered some 500 inhabitants. Higher up, on the uneven surface of the plateau, are scattered villages built on limestone foundations—tiny fortresses, like Rumigny and Champlat, the scene of hard-fought battles. Almost the entire surface is covered with forests of pine and oak and birch. These are the woods of Le Roi, Courton, Pourcy, and Reims, where hand-to-hand fighting went on for more than a fortnight, British, Italians, and French succeeding at first in checking the enemy and then in forcing him back, in those titanic combats. They were, in reality, genuine mountain battles; for the hills reach a height of 265 metres, above the level of the plateau, while the valleys are at least 100 metres deep; and the difficulties of the uneven surface were greatly increased by the obstacles offered by forests, vineyards, streams, and the villages, closely packed with stone houses, which could easily be transformed into fortifications.
The first great American battle.
A deep, broad, swampy valley, traversed by an unfordable stream; surmounted by steep slopes bristling with vineyards, orchards, villages, and diversified by quarries; above, an entanglement of low hills, ravines, and valleys, under a mantle of forest—such was the theatre of operations in which the Americans won their first great victory. A more difficult terrain could not be desired, or one better adapted to test the valor of the victorious troops.
But when they had made themselves masters of this battlefield, the Allies were by no means at the end of their labors; and the difficulties of the ground to be traversed were still serious in the central portion of the theatre of operations—the Orxois.
The Orxois plateau—its soil and relief.
A varied landscape.
The Orxois is a plateau extending north of the Marne to the Soissonnais, at a mean height of 160 metres. But it is very far from being uniform. Let us study the nature of its soil, and the relief, that we may comprehend its aspects more thoroughly. The substratum of the plateau of the Orxois is the layer of rock called "hard limestone" 30 to 40 metres in thickness, so much of which is used for building material in the towns and villages. This layer is almost horizontal, and if there were nothing superimposed upon it, the plateau would be a practically level platform. But above the hard limestone are successive layers of a far different character—layers of sand, of Beauchamp sandstone, mingled with marl, making a moist, impermeable, infertile soil; then another layer of limestone, softer and more clayey than that below. Finally, this upper limestone is covered, especially toward the east, with thin layers of marl, clay and, lastly, Fontainebleau sand, which are connected with the strata of the Tardenois. Thus, to a depth of 100 metres, we find a succession of diversified strata, hard and soft, dry and moist, which impart great variety to the landscape.
The valleys which intersect this conglomeration run from east to west, toward the deep depression hollowed out by the Savières and the Lower Ourcq. From north to south, we can count three—the Upper Ourcq, by Fère-en-Tardenois and La Ferté Milon, the Ru d'Alland, and the Clignon. Very wide where they pass through the upper strata, these valleys grow abruptly narrower and deeper when they reach the level of the hard limestone, where they are little more than deep and narrow ditches. Between these furrows, the marl, sand, and softer limestones form ridges, now steep, now rising more gently, the sandy soil bearing woods, the limestones cultivated fields.
The ridges run east and west.