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i88 WITH THE GERMAN ARMIES IN THE WEST
house has to be stormed whilst death is being rained upon the
attackers from the windows. But this is not part of my task,
and I have made it my duty to speak in the main only of what
I myself have seen and experienced.
In the Argonne forest much blood has flown, as I myself
have seen in its northern part, both from the east and west,
when with the 5th and the 4th Army respectively. Although the
whole of the front has developed more or less into a siege war
with trenches, communicating trenches, barbed-wire entangle-
ments and troiis-de-lotip, this applies even in a larger measure
to this forest region. Here the engineer troops have had
much work to do, and it is the generals of the Engineers who
lead the advance. To progress quickly is impossible. The
forest, so badly kept that it would horrify a northern sylvi-
culturist, is very difficult to advance in. In certain places
one has to cut one’s way step by step through shrub and
undergrowth. This sort of country is easy to defend, and the
French understand their business well. At night or in a fog,
the Germans push forward a thin line of infantry about fifteen
paces distant from one another. After having advanced as
far as the conditions allow, the men dig themselves in. This
gives rise to a chain of pits which afterwards, by continued
digging longitudinally, are united into a continuous trench.
When the men have made themselves at home in this new
position and extended it, a further area in front of the one
occupied is cleared by fire, whereupon the fresh advance is
made. In this way the forest is swept clean. It must be
taken step by step, tree by tree, for—as I have already pointed
out—the defenders have organised even the tree-tops for
defence, and have mounted machine guns there. In the gloom
of the undergrowth it is not always easy to distinguish friend
from foe. On the occasion of my visit it was not advisable
for anyone to come too close to the Argonne forest unless his
duties called him there. In certain cases the risk seemed even
greater for those behind the firing lines than for those in the
advanced positions, for the French usually fired too high.
Their shots mostly passed over the heads of their nearest
opponents, who, by the way, were remarkably well concealed.
This is not to be wondered at, for when the enemy is almost
upon one, accurate shooting becomes difficult. The parts of
the forest which have already been taken by the Germans
look very strange. The ground is streaked with trenches and
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