ANDBOOK OF ITHERN FRANCE DAVIS ^^B 1 2 1924 This book is DUE on last date stamped below MAR 2 6 1924 OCT 1 4 192^ OCT . ,^ JAN 17 1927 MAR 3 in OCT 2;, 1927 i NOV 7 1S26 '•-V l2 j92|i< ^ '"'• - - 1930' if.*-. DE^ 14 ^^^ 1 9 b4o o " "7 ,1 -, 7 '-^ NOV 1 ' 0^949 r^ OCT 3 1946 IPJJ 1 6 1962 i| A Handbook of Northern France by William Morris Davis, S.D., Ph.D. Professor of Geology, Emeritus, Harvard University Professeur agree a I'Universite de Paris, 1911-12 Chairman, Geography Committee, National Research Council 4 i ^ , I Canihridf^*': Harvard University Press . 1918 COPYRIGHT, 1918 HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS PC i5 3:''2i3f ^ \ PREFACE _ BY COL. PAUL AZAN IF I were asked to draw up a list of the things that an American soldier, embarking for France, ought to ^carry with him, I should put at the head of it this httle ^book, not only because the reading of it will be a pleas- ant distraction on the ocean voyage and in the trenches, y^but because a knowledge of its contents is indispensable. ^ The American soldier will certainly wish to know ** something of the region in which he is called to serve, to sufifer, and perhaps to die. His friends also will desire to inform themselves about it. They will find in this ^Handbook a concise account of northeastern France, ^^he equivalent of which can be learned elsewhere only oby consulting a number of general works and special articles. Xo one can be better qualified than Professor Davis to write such a book. His lectures on France, as a part of his course on Europe given at Harvard University from 1885 to 1912, have been based not only on a study of the best European sources, but on many journeys abroad, during which France has been repeatedly visited. Leading French geographers have honored him with corresponding membershii) in the Geograi)hi- cal Society of Paris, and in the Academy of Sciences. A. \\\ iv PREFACE If they had had to designate an American author for this Handbook, their choice would certainly have fallen on Professor Davis. His work in preparing the book is a service for which the United States and France should be equally grateful to him. Paul Azan, Lt.-Colonel, chef de la mission Cambridge, August, 1917. mHHaire franQaise PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR THIS Handbook has been written with the approval of the Geography Committee, National Research Council, for those officers of our National Army who may wish to learn something of the leading physical features of the brave country where their aid will be so welcome. If the chapters are read over and the geo- graphical names are identified on the accompanying maps, the uplands and valleys, rivers and cities, which may otherwise float vaguely "somewhere in France," will take proper position with respect to each other. News from the front and beyond and from the country that supports the front will thus become more definite and intelligible. Much fuller information on French geography can be obtained from Commandant Barry's " La Geographic Militaire " (Paris, 1899), and more especially from his larger work, " L'Architecture du Sol de la France " (Paris, I'KjIij. The historical aspects of the subject are admirably treated in the " Tableau de la Geographic de hi France " (Paris, 191 1 ), written })y Professor Vidal de hi lihiclu', the leading geographer of his country, as the first volume of the " Histoire de France " by Lavisse. For limited districts, reference should be made to vi PREFACE Auerbach's "Plateau lorrain " (1893), Demangeon's " Picardie" (1905), and Blanchard's "Flandre" (1906); but modern works such as these are unfortunately not available for all parts of France. The geographical features of northeastern France and the adjacent regions are by no means so simple as those of an equal area of our prairie states. The dominant features — the " upland belts " — of the part of France here described are of a kind that is not common in the United States and hence not familiar to most Americans. They are of vital importance in warfare, as is shown in Johnson's recent and valuable book, " Topography and Strategy in the War." If our officers wish to know these features as well as they are known by the officers of the German army, they should study not only the condensed descriptions of such a Handbook as this, but all other available sources of information, particularly the large-scale maps that are accessible in France. When the uplands and valleys of the country are known, it is a comparatively easy matter to locate the cities, villages, forests, railways, and roads of any dis- trict with respect to the relief of the surface; and when all these facts are learned, military movements may be planned with respect to them. It has not been possible, however, to indicate the roads and railways on the small outline maps which are here introduced as a means of locating the larger features of the region; and in order that the text shall not exceed a moderate number of pages, space has been allowed only for brief descriptions of a few of the most important lines of transportation. PREFACE vii Detailed information on these matters must be sought from special sources. The descriptions here presented have been prepared with constant reference to the large-scale maps of the French '' Etat-major " from which certain small rec- tangles are reproduced on a scale of 1:100,000. The generalized bird's-eye views sketched from these and other maps, will, it is hoped, assist the reader in visualiz- ing the districts thus represented; the views are seen to best effect if the book is laid flat and looked at obliquely. It should be understood that these sketches omit a multitude of small features. Large-scale maps should always be consulted for details. Certain sections of the introductory chapter as well as the whole of the final chapter have been revised by some of my colleagues, to whom I am much indebted. The interest in the book shown by the Officers of the French Army at Harvard has been a great encourage- ment; and for the prefatory page by Colonel Paul Azan I am under special obligations. To a number of friends who have contributed to the fund by which the publi- cation of a first edition of the Handbook for free dis- tribution to army officers has been made possible, my sincere thanks are given. Many pleasant journeys have been recalled while writing these pages: early visits to France in 1808, 1873, and 1878; a bicycle tour across northern France in 1894; personal excursions in 1899, 1900, 1903, and 1905; and university excursions in 1908, 1911, and 1912. Now, at an age when travel is no longer so easy as it was viii PREFACE once, the author can return only in imagination but always with deep sympathy to the fair landscapes, long familiar, so many of which have been laid waste. May the readers of the book come to share with the writer a warm affection for the scenes here described. W. M. D. Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., February, 1918. CONTENTS PAOB Preface by Col. Paul Azan iii Preface by the Author v CHAPTER I A Gener.\l Account of France 3 France and its Central Highlands — Boundaries — The northeastern frontier — Rivers and cities — Rivers of the northeastern frontier — The climate of France — Govern- ment — Public works: Roads; Canals; Railroads; Forests; Harlx)rs; Toi)ographic maps — Money — Weights and Measures. CHAPTER II The Geogr.\phical Features of Northern France ... 22 The Paris basin — The bordering uplands and highlands — The four saddles — Products of the highlands and the basin. CHAPTER III The Region around Paris 27 The three sectors centering at Paris — The southern sector — The eastern sector — The rocks and the soils of the east- ern sector — The northern sector — The western salients of the northern sector — Paris and its neighborhood. CHAPTER IV The Eastern Hai.i of the Paris Basin 43 The l)eltcd relief of northeastern France — The upland Ik'Hh uh natural defences — Varied features of difTercnt up- land \Xi\tM. ix X CONTENTS CHAPTER V The Vosges and the Adjoining Regions 52 The Highlands of the Vosges — Alsace — The uplands west of the Vosges — The saddle of Langres southwest of the Vosges — The sixth upland belt. CHAPTER VI From the Plateau of Langres to Lorraine 65 The fifth upland belt; southern part — The fifth upland belt; middle part — The elbow of the Moselle — The fifth upland belt ; northern part — The frontier on the fifth up- land belt — The Woevre lowland — The fifth and the sixth upland belts; northernmost parts. CHAPTER VII The Region of the Meuse 84 The fourth upland belt; southern part — The fourth up- land belt; northern part — The underfit Meuse — 'St. Mi- hiel and Verdun — The fourth upland belt; northernmost part. CHAPTER VIII Argonne and Champagne 98 The third upland belt; its southern lowland substitute — The forest of Argonne — The second upland belt; southern part; the forest of Othe — The second upland belt and the Champagne — The dry Champagne from the Seine to the Aisne — The lowlands from the Aisne to the Oise. CHAPTER IX The First Upland Belt 110 The scarp of the upland facing the Champagne lowland — The battle of the Marne — The tablelands north of the Aisne — Contrasts of upland belts and tablelands — The Aisne front. CONTENTS xi CHAPTER X The Region between the Upper Oise and the Somme . 124 General features of the region — Rivers and cities — The war front from the Oise to the Scarpe. CHAPTER XI The Northwestern Uplands 133 The chalk country of Picardy and Normandy — Villages and roads — \'alley of the Seine — Exceptional features — The clift coast along the Channel — The bight of the Somme — Lack of natural harbors. CHAPTER XII The Lowl.\nds of Northernjiost France and Western Belgium 144 The lowland, the maritime plain, and the dunes of Flanders — The lowland — The maritime plain — The dune-bordered coast — The people of Flanders — The war front in Flanders. CHAPTER XIII Regions North and Northeast of France 151 The .\rdennes and beyond — The gorge of the Meuse — The Uplands of Central Belgium — The Lorraine plateau and the adjacent districts of Germany — Southern part of the plateau — Northern part of the plateau — The Sarre coal field — The Ilun.sruck — The Luxembourg embayment — The gorge of the Moselle — The gorge of the Rhine. Index of Place Names 171 A HANDBOOK OF NORTHERN FRANCE CIL\PTER I A GENERAL ACCOUNT OF FRANCE 1. France and its Central Highlands. The parts of western Europe which through the course of centuries have been welded together to form the country we now know as France, the home of a brave people of an intense national spirit, may Fin. 1. France and the United States he dc-cribcd as an irregular rectangle, measuring 700 kilo- meters north and south by GOO kilometers east and west. If superi)osed on North America in proper latitude it would lie mostly in the northern United States. Its area (including the islaml of Corsica, 8747 sq. k.) is 53(5,400 s(i. k. oi- 207,170 sq. miles, somewhat more than that of Indiana, Illinois, Wis- consin, and Iowa combined, or about midway between the areas of California and Texas. Its population has increased 4 GENERAL ACCOUNT slowly from 37,386,313 in 1861 to 39,601,509 in 1911, and thus equals eight-ninths of that of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, two-thirds of that of the German Empire, four-fifths of that of Austria-Hungary, and two-fifths of that of the United States. The greater part of France consists of lowlands and moder- ately elevated uplands. Lofty mountains are found only in the Alps which form the southeastern, and in the Pyrenees which form the southwestern frontier. Between the northern lowlands and uplands and the lowlands of the south a grad- ual southeastward ascent leads to the Central Highlands or Massif central, flooded in certain districts with ancient lava flows and crowned with many extinct and more or less dissected volcanoes, of which the chief are Mt. Dore, 1886 meters, and the Cantal, 1858 meters. The Highlands reach their greatest altitude, 1200 to 1400 meters with summits up to 1700 meters, at the southeastern border, and there fall off rapidly to the east, southeast, and south; the high and deeply dissected southeastern slope is of mountainous aspect when seen from the adjoining lower lands, and is known as the Cevennes. The bold slope of the Central Highlands to the southeast has exercised a marked influence on the history of France. When the Romans extended their Empire westward along the coast of the Mediterranean, they founded a province in the open country that is traversed by the south-flowing Rhone between the Alps on the east and the Cevennes on the west: this district is still called Pro- vence and its language is not French but Provencal. The stream of invasion farther into Gaul was divided into two currents bj^ the Cevennes : a smaller current flowed westward between the Central Highlands and the Pyrenees to the low plains of the southwest, now known as Gascony ; a larger current flowed northward through the open valley of the Rhone to its continuation in the plain of the Saone, and thence northwestward over a saddle of higher ground to the ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE 5 extensive area of northern uplands and lowlands, now kno\\Ti as the Paris basin. Some of the conquering invaders became colonists. The native Gauls gradually gave up their own Celtic language and adopted the Latin of their more civilized conquerors; but as their adopted speech had certain local peculiarities, the Romans called it lingua gallica. Although the smaller southern and larger northern areas of the region were confluent across a western lowland, they were elsewhere separated by the Central Higlilands: hence, following a universal rule, the people of each area came to have certain ways of speech of their ovai. For example, in the south the habit was developed of using the Latin word, " hoc," pronounced oc, for " yes "; hence the southern language or Provencal came to be called Langue d'oc, and the southern district, Languedoc. In northern France, on the other hand, the affirmative was formed from the Latin words, " hoc ille," wliich in time came to be pronounced oil, and was later reduced to the modern form oui; thus the speech of the northern region might be called Langue d'oui. It is chiefly the Central Higlilands that are responsible for tliis linguistic division. About the fifth century the Franks, a Teutonic tribe, overran the northern part of the country, subdued the inhabitants and adopted their language, wliich being thus further modified from the origina Latin was called after the invaders, lingua Jrancisca. As the northl ern region was much the larger of the two, it gathered the greater population, and the people of the south were in time dominated by their relatives on the north. There on a middle meridian, a quarter way from the northern to the southern limit of the country, Paris grew to be a great city, and the language of the north came to be the standard for tlie nation. Thus France today, peopled chiefly by the descendants of the original Gauls, of the Romans from the south, and of the Franks from the north — with the addition of a Norman stock in Normandy, and of Britons in Brittany — has taken its forma of speech from the southern invaders, but the name of the countrj' and the name of its people and of its standard language come from the northern invaders. It i.s curious to note that wlvile tlie pccjple of the country that thus gained the name of France call themselves and their language by the Latinized adjective, /ranfais, we follow the Franks in the Teutonic 6 GENERAL ACCOUNT habit of changing the vowel in the substantive when making its adjective, and therefore the English name for the people and the language of France is French. 2. Boundaries. The boundaries of France may be de- scribed in terms of their local departures from a rectangular NORTH / r^'^^^ SEA I? 600zKlt7 =3L .A, AG E R M A N Y \ "?k3n ^>, < \ r*' — ^. 1 ^±^ zt I < Q: . . ^ , ■- , , SW 1 TZ E R L A N Dj /•• V Fig. 2. France and the Adjoining Countries frame measuring 600 by 700 k. as here shown. The north- ern boundary is bent outward 170 k. at the middle, so as to form a northern salient, close to the angle of which lies the city of Dunkirk on the coast of the North Sea. An irregular line trending southeast from the angle forms the boundary with Belgium across the low plains of the district known as BOUNDARIES 7 Flanders and along the southern slope of the gradually as- cending highland of the Ardennes to the German frontier, described below. The southwestern line, following the low shore of Flanders for a short distance, soon reaches the clift coast of an area of uplands, and this is followed along the somewhat sinuous shore line of the arm of the sea which we call the English Channel, but which the French know as la Manche (the Sleeve). The first salient of the sinuous shore line advances to Cape Gris Xez, and there reduces the Channel to its least width, only 33 k. across: it was hereabouts that Caesar, B.C. 55, made his first crossing into Britain, quod inde erat brevis- sirnus in Britanniam trajectus. In fine weather the chalk cliffs on the farther side of the Channel may be descried as a whitish band along the horizon ; and it is held by some that for this reason England, as viewed from the Continent, has gained the name of Albion. The harbor cities of Calais and Boulogne-sur-Mer, northeast and south of Cape Gris Nez, derive their chief importance from the international ferry traffic, day and night, across the Channel to Dover and Folke- stone; thus the narrowed Channel here gains its English name of Straits of Dover, and its French name of Pas de Calais. The western and southern boundaries are sufficiently shown on the outline map on page 6. On the east, the crest of the southwestern Alps, trending irregu- larly north-south, west of which the mountains extend over 100 k. toward the Rhone, forms the boundary with Italy, somewhat ex- terior to the southern third of the eastern side of the rectangle; the greatest excess is in the soutli near the coast. Mt. Blanc (4810 m.), the highest summit of the Alps, lies on the nortliern part of this line, beyond whifh French and Swiss territory interlock in such manner that the former ocoui)ies most of the southern side of Lake Geneva, wliile the city of Geneva is included near the end 8 GENERAL ACCOUNT of a southwestern lobe of Switzerland that, obliquely Umited by the northeast-southwest Jura highlands, sharply indents the eastern side of France. 3. The Northeastern Frontier. The northeastern boundary remains to be described. Beyond the other land frontiers of France, the near-by people of the adjoining nations, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and Belgium, have many racial ties with the French; they speak languages of the same Romance family, and most of them (except in Switzerland), like most of the French, profess the Catholic religion. But beyond the northeastern frontier lies Germany, occupied by people of an- other stock, who speak an altogether different language and of whom the dominant members are Protestants. This frontier has for centuries been a battle ground. Between the Jura and the Vosges, the boundary runs north- ward across a narrow depression, the passage of Belfort, whence the southwestward drainage runs by the Doubs and the Saone through the mid-eastern lowland of France to the south-flowing Rhone; while the northeastward drainage runs by the 111 to a similar lowland in western Germany, north- ward through which flows the Rhine. It is from here north- and northwestward that the frontier was set back from its former position after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. Be- yond the low passage of Belfort the boundary now follows the north-south crest of a short mountain range, known as the Vosges (German, Vogesen), for nearly 100 k., and thus the province of Alsace, extending into the lowland of the middle Rhine east of the Vosges and including the famous city of Strasbourg (German, Strassburg), was transferred to Germany under the name of Elsass. Northwest from the Vosges the boundary runs arbitrarily across the uplands to the little Grand Duchy of Luxembourg on the southern slope THE NORTHEASTERN FRONTIER 9 of the Ardennes highland, traversing the hills and valley's, first on the east then on the west of the north-flowing Moselle, with Uttle regard to local features; thus the French province of Lorraine was tlivided, and a part of it, including the city of Metz on the Moselle north of the confluence of the INIeurthe, was transferred to Germany under the name of Lothringen. The Luxembourg frontier, narrowed to less than 10 k. where it faces France, is followed bj' that of Belgium along the south- ern slope of the Ardennes, bej'ond which we return north- westward across the lowlands to the coast near Dunkirk, where this description began. Back of the disputed northeastern frontier the French established the strong fortresses of Belfort near the boundary in the passage south of the Vosges, Epinal on the western slope of the Vosges, Toul on the upper Moselle, Verdun on the middle Meuse, Mdzieres on the Meuse near its entrance into the gorge by which it trenches the Ardennes, and Maubeuge, near the border farther northwest; these for- tresses (the last two, unfinished) will be referred to again in the accounts of their several districts. 4. Rivers and Cities. The northeastern frontier of France is exceptional in being drained by rivers which flow through foreign territory on their way to the sea, as will be detailed farther on. This is nowhere else the case. A large noVthern area — the greater p.nt of the -dcallcd Paris basin ^— is drained northwestward to the English ( 'Ii.iiiikI by the Seine, with Havre (population in 1911, 130,159) ou the northern side of its estuary, Rouen (124,987) on its right or northern bank 70 k. inland, and Paris (2,888,110) on both sides of the rivci- near the center of the basin, 170 k. from the sea; a number of branches — Oise, Aisne, Marne, Seine, Annen^on, Yonne, and many smaller streams — converge 10 GENERAL ACCOUNT toward this center from the northeast, east, and southeast. In the plains east of Paris, drained by these rivers, the largest cities are Rheims (French, Reims; 115,178) and Troyes (55,486). The Somme, on which Amiens (93,207) is the Fig. 3. The Rivers and Cities op Northern France chief city, is the largest of several smaller rivers flowing north- westward to the Channel north of the Seine. The eastern part of the Central Highlands is drained northward through open valleys by the Loire and the Allier; these unite in a trunk stream which, under the name of Loire, turns west- ward and has the historic cities of Orleans (72,096), Blois (population of cities of less than 50,000 inhabitants is not RR'ERS OF THE NORTHEASTERN FRONTIER 11 given), Tours (73,398), and Angers (83,786) on its banks, and the port of Xantes (170,535) at the head of its estuary, which opens to the sea south of the peninsula of Brittany. 5. Rivers of the Northeastern Frontier. We now return to the northeastern border of France, where the French rivers traverse foreign territory in their lower courses. The Moselle and the Meurthe, flowing northwestward from the Vosges, join under the former name, with the important city of Nancy (119,949) on the ]\Icurthe 10 k. above the conflu- ence; then the single river turning northward and cross-, ing the boundary in an open valley south of Metz, takes the German name of Mosel, turns northeast through a deep and winding valley, and joins the Rhine in the middle of its gorge through the broad highlands known as the Slate moun- tains (German, Schicfergebirge) : at the junction lies Coblentz, a modernized form of the Latin name, Confluentia; and further down the Rhine lies Koln, which wc know better in its French form, Cologne, the modernized Latin name of the Roman Colonia, established nearly 2000 years ago. It was from points on the Rhine between these two cities that German strategic railroads were built westward along the northern base of the Slate mountain highlands to the frontier of Belgium near Liege (German Lilttich) in the years pre- ceding the war, evidently in readiness for use in the pre- mo(litated invasion of that neutral country. The Meuse, rising in the hills west of the Vosges, flows north and northwest as an almost branchless trunk through a beautiful winding valley in the uplands between the Moselle on one side and the northeastern tributaries of the Seine system on the other; thus approaching the frontier on the hilly southern border of the Ardennes, the Meuse receives the Chiers from the east, below the junction of which lies 12 GENERAL ACCOUNT Sedan, and the Sermonne from the west, with Mezieres- Charleville on its bent course near-by: the river then turns north again and trenches the broad highland of the Ardennes in a deep and winding gorge, shifting the boundary 35 k. northward with it; next bending northeastward along the northern slope of the Ardennes, and northward near the east- ern border of Belgium, with Namur and Liege at the elbows, it continues to and through Holland, where it is called the Maas, and finally joins the complex estuary of the lower Rhine. In the lower region farther northwest, the boundary is again bent outward, but not so far as on the Meuse, at the crossing of three small rivers: the Sambre, the Escaut, and the Lys. Here a number of details may be mentioned, because of their importance in the war. The Sambre, flowing northeastward from the rolling uplands of a salient French area in which Hes the fortified city of Maubeuge near the point where Caesar " overcame the Nervii," crosses the border and runs along the northern slope of the Ardennes; Charleroi in the Belgian coal field, lies on its mid-length; it flows into the Meuse at the Namur elbow. The upper Escaut, on which Cambrai and Valenciennes are situated, is joined in the lowland near the boundary by the Scarpe, on which Arras and Douai are placed; the Belgian city of Tournai is on the northward course of the Escaut not far beyond the boundary; Mons lies in Belgium about midway between Tournai and Charleroi. The Lys, flowing in another lowland northeastward across the border, receives some small branches from the south, on one of which lies Lille (217,807), with Roubaix (122,723) and Tourcoing (82,644) near-by in a famous industrial district; Courtrai lies on the Lys a short distance in Belgium; farther on, Ghent (Gand) is situated at the junction of the Lys with THE CLIMATE OF FK\NCE 13 the Escaut, which then turning eastwarci with the name of Schelde, turns north again and then northwest; here it expands, with Antwerp (Anvers) at the head of the tide, into an estuary, the southwesternmost of several broadened coastal waterways, and reaches the sea by passing 50 k. through Dutch territory. Still farther toward the northern corner of France, the Yser, a small stream, flows eastward across the boundary, then northward to the coast; Ypres lies on one of its httle branches in Belgium, and Nieuport marks its mouth in the dunes. It is noteworthy that France has only five cities — Paris, Mar- seilles, Lyons, Bordeaux, and Lille — with populations over 200,000; and only ten more with populations over 100,000, of which Nantes, Havre, Rouen, Roubaix, Nancy, and Rheims are in the northern half of the country. The population of Paris is about as great as that of the fourteen other French cities which exceed 100,000. 6. The Climate of France. The climate of France is much more temperate than the climate of an area of the same lati- tude in central or eastern North America. The prevailing winds come from the west and bring with them the tempering influences of the ocean; moreover, they come somewhat from the southwest in winter and thus diminish the cold, and some- what from the northwest in summer and thus moderate the heat which would otherwise be felt. The mean temperature in January (from 6° C. = 43° F. in the south to 2° C. = 36° F. in the northeast) corresponds to that of North Carolina and northern (leorgia or of Arkansas and Oklahoma in the same nujnth. W'intor weathfr is frequently cloudy and wet; hence the air is chilhiig though the temperature is not very low. The coldest winter winds are from the continental interior on the northeast. The mean temperature in July (from 24° C. = 75° F. in the southeast to 18° C. = 64° F. in the northwest) 14 GENERAL ACCOUNT corresponds to the July mean of southern Pennsylvania and Ohio or of Wisconsin and North Dakota. The extremes of both seasons are less in France than in the central United States. The annual rainfall varies from 500 to 1000 millimeters (20 to 40 inches), corresponding in general terms to that of eastern Nebraska and Iowa. Snowfall is rarely heavy, even in the north; and as the winds that follow snow storms usually come from the ocean at a temperature above freezing, snow seldom lies long on the ground. Weather changes, including the large cloudy areas of low barometric pressure with shifting winds and rain or snow, as well as the smaller thunder storms of summer, advance in a general way from southwest to north- east, as in the eastern United States; but the tracks of low- pressure centers, which often traverse the United States, usually pass to the north of France in spite of its relatively high latitude; hence France more often receives the southerly than the northerly winds that spiral around such centers. The climate of northern and central France is fitting for wheat and other grains. Through the southeastern half of the country the vine is extensively cultivated and wine of many kinds is produced in great amount. In the extreme southeast the fig, the olive, and the orange flourish. Most of the common trees are of familiar kinds: they include oaks, maples, elm, beech, birch, chestnut, pine, ash, poplar, and willow. The genet or broom-plant is abundant in uncultivated fields; heather prevails in moorland districts. 7. Government. France was a kingdom for centuries under the Orleans and Bourbon dynasties before the First Republic was established, following the terrible revolution which began in 1789. The republic was replaced by the First Empire under Napoleon in 1804. In 1814 the kingdom was restored under the Bourbon dynasty, and continued with a short interruption GOVERNMENT 15 due to the return of Napoleon in 1815 (Louis XVIII, 1814, Charles X, 1824) until the revolution of 1830, when the Bour- bons were replaced by Louis Philippe of the Orleans dy- nasty. Another revolution in 1848 caused the abdication of Louis Philippe and the institution of a second Republic, with Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of the first emperor, chosen as president by popular vote. Four years later the president of the republic took the title of Napoleon III, and the Second Empire was established. This lasted until the surrender of the Emperor to the Germans at Sedan in 1870, when a revolutionary government established itself in Paris and subsequently inaugurated the third Republic, which has now endured longer than any form of government since the old kingdom. The Government thus constituted includes a Chamber of Deputies with nearly 600 members elected by universal (male) suffrage everj^ four years, and a Senate of 300 mem- bers who are chosen by electoral colleges, consisting of local deputies and other officials, for nine years in three groups, one group every three years. Legislation may be initiated or amended in either body, but must be passed by both. The president of the Republic is elected for seven years by the senators and deputies in joint session, known as the constitu- tional a.ssembly ; these elections are not preceded by a popular campaign, but are accomplished promptly when a presidential term lapses, or is closed by resignation or death. The presi- dents of the third republic have been Thiers, 1871; Mac- Mahon, 1873; Grc'-vy, 1879; Carnot, 1887; Casimir-P^-rier, l.V.M; Faure, 1895; Loubet, 1899; FailkVes, 1900; Poincard, 1913. The president is supported by a cabinet or ministry {ministere) the members of which {ministres) arc selected by a 16 GENERAL ACCOUNT political leader. The chief members are the ministers of finance, war, marine, interior, justice, foreign affairs, colonies, public instruction, etc. The ministry represents the domi- nant group or bloc of parties in the chamber of deputies; the ministry usually resigns when its policy is defeated by the chamber, and another leader is then selected by the president to form a new ministry. Thus the ministry does not repre- sent the policy of the president, as the cabinet does in the United States, nor of a single political party, but of the people as reflected by a majority of the deputies, temporarily united in a hloc or coalition of several parties. France was formerly divided into some thirty provinces, such as Provence, Gascony, Champagne, Normandy; it is now divided into eighty-seven departments, from wliich deputies are elected. The departments are usually named after the rivers that they partly include, as Aisne, Oise, Seine et Marne, Meurthe et Moselle. The administration of each department is in charge of a prefect, who is appointed by the president of the republic on the recommendation of the minister of the interior. The departments are divided into 362 arrondissements, and these into 2915 cantons and over 36,200 communes. The chief external possessions of France are Algiers and Tunis in north Africa; several large equatorial provinces in Africa south of the western Sahara and north of the Congo; Madagascar, the large island east of southern Africa; Indo-China, south of China proper; and New Caledonia and the Society Islands in the Pacific Ocean. 8. Public Works: Roads. The excellent highways of France (Routes nationales, Routes departementales) are among the most conspicuous of the many excellent products of the Depart- ment of Public Works. The pressing need of a great highway system in the United States can be better understood after a visit to France. The Routes Nationales are so planned as to provide thoroughfares connecting all the important centers PUBLIC WORKS 17 of population. The}' are carefully located and excessive gradients are avoided; for over a century they have con- tributed greatly to the thrift of rural France. It not infre- quently happens that a modern road follows, for a greater or less distance, an ancient Roman road, traces of which may still be recognized even where it is abandoned. The less important local roads are in the care of the communes that they sei-ve. Each main road has a name, as Route de Paris a Nancy, which is repeatedly given on signs along its course. Distances are accurately indicated on the national roads by larger stones at every kilometer, and by smaller stones at every tenth of a kilometer. Trim heaps of broken stone, ready for mending the surface, are — at least in times of peace — characteristic features of the unfenced roadside. Village names are indicated, together with the department and arrondisse- ment to which they belong, on signs at the entrance of the main roads. The rule of the road is, as in the United States, " turn to the right," and not as in Great Britain, " turn to the left." Canals follow many of the larger valleys. They are so located as to afford communication not only along each main river valley, but also over low passes between the valleys of neighboring river systems. They not infrequently pass under divides in tunnels two or three kilometers in length. Canals are supplemented by navigable rivers, improved by dams and locks. Chains laid along the bed of certain rivers are passed over a drum on tow-boats and arc thus used to drag barges against the current. Although supplanted by railways as a means of rapid transportation, the canals still have a large value in keeping flown the charges for slow freight. Railways, some of which are owned by the State, are of two gauges; standard, 1.44 m. (4 ft. 8J in.) and narrow, 1 m.; the latter are for local .service on branch lines of light traffic. Kailways are so numerous that they cannot be shown on 18 GENERAL ACCOUNT the small maps in this book. The strength of bridge construe tion over or under railways and the number and height c railway viaducts are impressive. The frequent use of skewei arches of stone or brick is surprising to visitors from a countr; where square bridges of wood, steel, or concrete prevail. Passenger cars (wagons) for local service are of small length divided into transverse compartments, entered at either side; ir trains of such cars one cannot pass from compartment to compart- ment, much less from car to car. On express trains, longer cars connected by " vestibules " and divided into compartments with a corridor on one side, are generally used, but these also have doors on both sides, sometimes for each compartment. The cars or compart- ments are of three classes; the class chosen {jpremiere, seconde (pron. segonde), troisieme) must be specified when buying a ticket. Tickets are usually examined as the passenger goes from the waiting room to the platform, and collected as he leaves the station of desti- nation. Forests. Certain forests in France are under governmental care, as timber is of high value in a country of ancient occupa- tion. Many of the forested areas are located on uplands of relatively infertile soil, or of so uneven a surface as to make their use difficult for other purposes than tree-growing. Most of the forests are traversed by many rectilinear lanes, laid out in geometrical pattern so as to intersect at selected centers, and used in exploitation of timber. Harbors. Harbor works are extensive and elaborate. They are to be seen at all the ports along the clift coast of Nor- mandy and Picardy, and along the dune-bordered coast of Flanders, where they include jetties to prevent the closing of the harbor entrance by the 'long-shore drift of sand and gravel, and stone wharves adjoining dredged docks. Topographic maps. The topographic map of the general staff, Carte de France de V Etat-major , is the standard on which TOPOGRAPHIC MAPS 19 all other modern maps of France are based. It is the work of army engineers begim in 1818, finished in 1866, revised in later years, and published by the Geographical Service of the Army in 274 sheets on a scale of 1 : 80,000 (8 kilometers = 1 decimeter, or about 1 mile = f inch). Another edition of the same survej', revised, is published in quarter-sheets on a scale of 1 : 50,000. Selected rectangles from the 1 : 50,000 quarter- sheets are here reproduced on half-scale (1:100,000, or 1 cm. = 1 k.) on pages 60, 74, 78, 90, 94, 118, 126, 160; their location is shown by small rectangles, with page numbers, in the maps on pages 28, 54, 67, 134. These maps are printed in bhu-k. Relief is well indicated by down- slope lines, or hachures, which are drawn short, heavy, and close-set for steep slopes, long, fine, and open-spaced for gentle slopes. Flood- plains subject to overflow are stippled; small streams are shown by single waving lines; larger streams bj^ double lines with the included space shaded: forests, nearly all of which have special names, by conventional tree-signs; roads, by double lines with unshaded space between, three grades of importance being indicated by the width of the space (rows of trees adjoining the national roads are shown by dots); lanes, by single hnes; paths, by dotted Unes; railways by single heavy lines; canals, by three close-set hnes, the middle line heaviest. Altitudes are given in meters for occasional points. Cities and villages are shown with the pattern of their chief streets. Boundaries of departments are marked with strong short-dash lines, the .seat of their prefecture being marked with a small rectangle containing the letters PF; boundaries of cantons are marked with dotted lines, the name of their chief town being adjoined by a small oval containing the letters CT. Mai)s l)a.sed on a later survey along the northeastern frontier have been jirepared on a scale of 1:20,0(J0, with altitudes shown b}' con- tour lines of 5 m. interval; the.se sheets are printed in several colors; they are not sold to the public. Reductions of the standard 80,000th map have been pub- lished on smaller scales and in various styles by several 20 GENERAL ACCOUNT departments of the government. Those prepared by the Geo- graphical Service of the Army and by the Ministry of Public Works are both on a scale of 1 : 200,000; the first in 78 sheets, the second in 135. The maps of the Geographical Service are very legibly printed in five colors; the relief in brown shad- ing with 20 m. sketched contours, the water in blue, forests in green, names and railways in black, towns and highways in red. These maps are the most serviceable for general use. 9. Money. French money is reckoned in francs and centimes. A franc is normally worth $0.19; five centimes or a sou is about equiva- lent to a cent; 10 centimes or two sous, to an English penny. Five francs are almost the same as a dollar, and 25 francs are closely equivalent to a pound sterling. French coins are : copper; 5 centimes or 1 sou ; 10 centimes or 2 sous, silver; 50 centimes = 10 sous or half a franc; 1 franc; 2 francs; 5 francs. [Note : Many Belgian and Italian silver coins, nominally equivalent to French money, do not pass at their face value.) gold; 10 francs; 20 francs = a napoleon. English money : 12 pennies = 1 shilling = $0.24. 20 shillings = 1 pound = $4.84. (21 shillings = 1 guinea), English coins are: copper; half penny; penny. silver; threepence; sixpence; shilling; two shillings (florin) ; two and a half shillings (half crown); five sliillings (crown), gold; 10 shillings (half sovereign); 20 shil- lings (sovereign). Weights and Measures. The decimal system of weights and measures, adopted by the French near the close of the eighteenth century and by most countries of Europe since then, is based on the unit of linear measure, or meter (metre), which was intended to be and is almost exactly 1/10,000,000 of the meridian quadrant of Paris. It equals 39.37 inches or 3.28 feet. Its multiples and frac- tions and their equivalents are: — MONEY, WEIGHTS AND MEASURES 21 Linear measure. Meters. Inches. Feet. Miles. kilometer 1000 .... 3281 0.62138 hectometer decameter meter decimeter centimeter millimeter .001 0.04 0,003 00 328.1 10 .... 32.81 1 39.37 3.281 .1 3.94 0.328 .01 0.39 0.033 One kilometer is roughly f or | of a mile. Areas are expressed in square meters = 1550.0 square inches, or 10.76 square feet; in ares = 100 square meters; and in hectares = 10,000 square meters = 2.471 acres; hence 260 hectares about equal one square mile. A'olumes. The unit of volume is a cubic decimeter, called a liter (litre) = 61.02 cubic inches = 1.06 U. S. quarts = 0.88 British quart. Weights. The ordinary unit of weight is the kilogram, whicli is the weight of a liter of water under standard conditions = 2,205 pounds. Temperatures. The Centigrade thermometer scale has 0° at the freezing point and 100° at the boiling point of water, under stand- ard conditions. To convert Centigrade into Fahrenheit degrees, multiply by -^ and add 32°. To convert Fahrenheit into Centigrade degrees, subtract 32° and multiply by ^. Atmospheric Pressure. French weather maps represent atmos- pheric pressure in millimeters: normal pressure is taken to be 760 mm. = 29.92 inches. CHAPTER II THE GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES OF NORTHERN FRANCE 10. The Paris Basin. The greater part of northern France is occupied by the so-called Paris basin, which gains its name Fig. 4. The Paris Basin and its Saddles from the basin-like slope of the rock layers from all sides towards Paris as a center. The relation between the rock 22 THE PARIS BASIN 23 layers and the surface forms here occurring is moreover in many ways so manifest and so significant, that an understand- ing of it aids the memory in placing a multitude of details in their proper position with respect to the larger features of which they are parts. The Bordering Uplands and Highlands. The stratified formations occupying the Paris basin lie, with a total thick- ness of hundreds or thousands of meters, upon a foundation of ancient and disordered rocks which emerge in four upland or highland areas of unequal size around the basin borders as shown in Fig. 4: these are the Armorican area on the west, which includes the peninsula of Brittany and an adjoining part of the mainland, the extensive Central Highlands on the south, the \'osges (German, Vogesen) of comparatively small area on the east, and the Ardennes with their eastern exten- sion into the Slate-mountain highlands (German, Schiefer- gebirge) on the northeast. It is highly probable that the strata of the Paris basin, shown in section across the middle of Fig. 4, once overlapped the four areas of ancient foundation rocks much farther than they do now, and that they have been worn back because those areas are regions of upheaval; the Paris basin, on the other hand, is a region of relative depres- sion, where the covering strata, broadly overspreading the di.sordered foundation rocks, have been preserved; the oldest members of the basin series crop out around the margin of the basin, the youngest member occupies its center. The 8ucces.sive .strata ma}' tliercAjre be coinjxircd t(j a nest of very shallow di.shes, tho largest one at the ba.se, the smallest at the top, yet Hi) nicely fitted together that the edges of all ri.se to about the same aititud**. Jiut the basin stnietiire has many irregularities: Paris lies near its center, and ihr- edges of the succes.sive formations are farther apart on the eaat side than on the west; indeed, the basal 24 GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES members of the series that are broadly exposed along the border of the Vosges and in Lorraine are hardly seen elsewhere; and to the north, the lower members are overspread by an upper member — the chalk — so far that they are concealed as it laps upon the foundation rocks which ascend gradually eastward in the Ardennes. IL The Four Saddles. Moreover, as may be seen in Fig. 4, the basin strata extend outward across the four depressions or " saddles " that separate the four enclosing uplands of ancient rocks. A broad and flat northwestern saddle, forming the chalk uplands of Picardy and Normandy, occupies the 330 k. space between the Ardennes highlands on the north of the basin and the hilly Armorican area on the west; the north- western side of this saddle is cut off by the sea. A narrow southwestern saddle, about 60 k. across, lies between the Armorican area on the west and the Central Highlands on the south, and thus connects the Paris basin with the lowlands of Gascony : this may be called the Poitou saddle, after the old province of that district. A broader southeastern saddle, 150 k. in width, rises gradually and forms the so-called plateau of Langres, between the Morvan, a northeastern extension of the Central Highlands, on one side, and the much smaller mountainous mass of the Vosges on the other; its steeper southeastern side, the southern part of which is known as the " Golden Slope " {la Cote d'Or), with Dijon near its base, descends rapidly to the flat basin of the Saone, known as the plain of la Bresse. The fourth and northeastern, or Lorraine saddle, broadly exposing the lowest members of the basin series, has a width of 75 k. between the Vosges on the east and the Slate-mountain highlands on the north; this saddle stretches eastward into Germany and, rising gradually, is obliquely cut off by the broad valley-lowland of the middle Rhine; its eastern upland border, prolonged northward from PRODUCTS OF HIGHLANDS AND BASIN 25 the \'osges and overlooking the Rhine lowland, is known as the Hardt. It should be borne in mind that the Seine and its branches drain only a part of the Paris basin. In the northwest, several small rivers — the Somme and others on the northeast of the Seine, the Risle, Touque, Dives, and Orne on the southwest — have independent courses to the Channel. In the northeast, the Aleuse and the Moselle flow out from the border of the basin through the adjoining uplands to the Rhine. In the south, the Loire, after emerging from the Central Highlands, turns westward across the southern part of the basin, receives certain tributaries — chiefly the Loir and the Sarthe — from the western part of the basin, as well as others from the south, and reaches the sea south of Brittany. 12. Products of the Highlands and the Basin . The Paris basin, dif- fering from the enclosing uplands and highlands in the composition and attitude of its rocks, therefore differs also in form, soil, and min- eral products. The uplands and highlands consist of granite, gneiss, schists, and other crystalline rocks, generally resistant to weathering, as well as of various stratified rocks, greatly deformed, much more ancient than those of the Paris basin, and usually more indurated. Coal is found within the boundaries of France only in these ancient foundation rocks: the Central plateau includes the important though small coal basin of St. Etienne in a vallej- that indents the middle of its eastern side, southwest of Lyons; not far north in another highland valley is Le Creuzot, with its great iron works. Another important coal area, known as the Sarre (German, Soar) ba-sin after the branch of the Moselle which it borders, lies in Ger- man territorj', a.s shown on j). 158, south of the Slate-mountain uplands bj' which the Lorraine saddle is limited on the north. The extensive coal basin of Belgium, shown on p. 153, lies along the northern side of the Ardcimes, and extends westward under the cover of the overlapping basin strata into northern France, where its deep mines determine the situation of a number of industrial cities, of which the chief an; iJouai and Lens. Iron ore occurs in several districts of the ancient foundation rocks, esp(!cially in the northern arm of the Armorican area, known as the Cotentin ; hence important kon works have been established near by in the ancient city of Caen. 26 GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES The strata of the Paris basin include limestones, chalk, marls, sandstones, and clays, all lying nearly horizontal. Certain members of the series contain important iron ores; the chief of these lie in the uplands west of Metz, and largely in a part of Lorraine that was taken by Germany in 1871 (see p. 77). But as a rule the strati- fied formations yield few important mineral products, apart from building stones, limestone, cement, gypsum, and road metal. The best building stones are limestones and sandstones, which are easily carved when fresh from the quarry, but which become hard and durable after exposure to the weather. Flint concretions from the chalk provide a resistant road cover. As the basin strata outcrop in northeastern France in roughly concentric arcs, or aureoles, Fig. 13, around Paris as a center, the varied forms of the surface, modelled by the action of erosional proc- esses on the nested strata of varying resistance, as well as the soils and with them the agricultural products of the basin area, are closely sympathetic with the patterns of the concentric structural arcs; likewise, local industries as affected by soils and products, drainage lines and transportation routes as affected by surface forms, and population, both rural and urban, as affected by all these elements, are repeatedly found to be influenced if not controlled in their distribution by the same structural factors, as will be fully shown on later pages. CHAPTER III THE REGION AROUND PARIS 13. The Three Sectors centering at Paris. The confluence at Paris of the Seine and the ]\Iarne, each of which has re- ceived many converging tributaries in its upper course, may be taken to mark the drainage center of the Paris basin. The same two branch rivers and the trunk river in which they unite serve to divide the central area of the basin into three unequal sectors: one of about a right angle and a half on the south, between the upper and lower Seine; another of the same amplitude on the north between the Marne and the lower Seine; and a third of about 90° on the east between the Marne and the upper Seine. Although the sectors are here named after three of the cardhial points, it should be noted that the course of the upper Seine is about northwest; that of the Marne, west-southwest; and that of the lower Seine, west-northwest; hence the sectors do not precisely face the points for which they are named. The southern sector is largely occupied by uplands, which are chiefly formed of the youngest, uppermost members of the heavy series of basin strata, lying essentially horizontal. Some (JO k. or more to the south and southwest these strata have a broadly contiruious surface; near Paris they are sepa- rated by irregularly Ijranching valleys into discontinuous tabular masses at remarkal)ly uniform altitudes of 160 or 170 III. The eastern sector begins as a lowland 80 or 90 m. in altitude and ascends slowly eastward with the rising strata 27 28 THE REGION AROUND PARIS CENTR.\L AREA OF THE PARIS BASIN 29 to an upland 200 ni. or more in altitude, where practically all traces of the uppermost beds, 100 m. or hiore in thickness, have been worn away. In the northern sector, the upper- most strata have been less completely removed; they are seen chiefly in the neighborhood of Paris as isolated residual hills, from 130 to 200 m. in altitude, surmounting the lowland (60-90 m.) of imderlying strata, which rise slowly westward and northward to an upland (140-170 m.) that is continuous, Fig. 6. Bird's-Ei-e Diagram. Central Area of Paris Basin except for river valleys, with the upland of the eastern sector. The eastern part of the northern sector is cut by the Ourcq, flowing southwestward to the Marne; the western part is cut across on a parallel line of greater length by the Oise, which joins the Seine at its second northern loop below Paris. This arrangement of upland.s and lowlands is very rouglily suni- iiiarizcd in Fig. 6, by which the unsymmctrical " nesting " of the ba«in strata, already referred to on an earlier page, may be made more apparent tliari before. It thus apjM'ars that the center of the Paris ba.sin, as marked by th(! upixTinost members of the basin .series, lies somewhat to the wjuth of the center a.s marked by the conver- gence of the chief rivers at the site of the capital city. Tlic division 30 THE REGION AROUND PARIS of the Parisian district into sectors, as here indicated, is not exact and geometrical, but rough and geographical, for the three chief rivers are not rectilinear. The upper Seine is moderately sinuous; the Marne is strikingly sinuous; the lower Seine is exceedingly sinuous, especially at and next below Paris. Near the central area the rivers are about 20 m. above sea level; the adjoining lowlands are from 20 to 60 m. higher. The three sectors may now be described more in detail. 14. The Southern Sector. The discontinuous tabular up- lands, O, Fig. 6, south of the Seine near Paris fall off eastward and less distinctly westward in irregular scarps, notched by many valleys and ravines, toward lower lands bordering the upper and the lower Seine. The scarp to the east is the stronger of the two, because the lowland there near the basin center is lower than on the west. The valleys that notch the scarps become shallower toward their heads. The forest of Fontainebleau lies on the upland margin (130 m.) 60 k. south of Paris; and the historic town of the same name occupies a lowland site near the Seine. A shght predominance of north- west-southeast valleys becomes more marked as Paris is approached: one such valley, drained to the northwest, cuts off a strip of the even upland, 25 k. long and from 2 to 4 k. wide, that lies tangent to the three southern loops of the Seine below Paris; another such valley, drained to the Seine above Paris, almost cuts off a shorter, irregular portion of the upland near the blunt apex of the sector. The location of cities and towns near Paris on the south may be roughly expressed in terms of the features thus described. Sceaux lies on the high ground near the east end of the shorter detached portion of the upland, and enjoys a delightful prospect over the low- land adjoining the upper Seine; Meudon Ues on a northern spur of the same upland detachment, and overlooks the first southern loop of the Seine below Paris, across which the Bois de Boulogne is seen CITIES AND TOWNS SOUTH OF PARIS 31 covering the terminal part spur of the lowhuid that enters this loop from the northeast. Sevres lies on the slope near the Seine below Meudon. Versailles (60,458) with its roj-al palace and gardens is situated near the head of the valley which cuts off the longer upland strip; St. Cyr, the seat of a famous military school, is at the northern base of the large upland area a little farther west. St. Cloud and its park occupy the eastern end of the longer detached upland strip, with a fine view up the Seine to Paris; St. Germain is at the northern ba.se of this strip farther west, where it is touched by the second Fig. 7. Villages at Stream-head Springs southward loop of the Seine west of Paris. In this area of detached uplands, the smaller villages, most of which are of ancient or medieval origin, are frequently situated, as in Fig. 7, on the upland slojK'S where the higher beds of pervious limestones and sandstones rest, all horizontal, on impervious clays; for at that level springs i.ssue, on which the local water supply has for centuries been depend- ent. This primitive control of village location will be frequently met with in other parts of France. lo. The Eastern Sector. The lowland of the 90" sector be- tween the Seine and the Marne rises eastward to an upland, 1, Fig. G, known as la Brie, part of which was overrun by the (Icnnan army in August, 1914, as will bo doscribod on p. 114. The slope of the surface is, although gentle, distinctly greater than the fall of the rivers that drain it; hence their valleys increase in depth as they are followed ujjstreain. Most of the streams evidently had a serpentine course before they began to erode the present valleys, for the valleys themselves are 32 THE REGION AROUND PARIS strikingly sinuous, with steep amphitheatral slopes, alternately on the right and left, opposite sloping spurs, alternately on the left and right. As the serpentine curves of rivers increase in size with increase of river volume, the valleys show the same systematic variation of form; thus the Yeres, a small 10 KIU FiG. 8. The Meandering Valley op the Yeres, looking East tributary of the upper Seine, has a valley with numerous, small, close-set bends as in Fig. 8; the Grand Morin, a somewhat larger tributary of the Marne, has a valley of larger pattern and therefore of fewer bends; and the Marne itself has a valley in which the bends are on a still larger scale and hence still fewer in number, as in Fig. 9. The city of Meaux, here shown, marks the nearest approach of the Ger- mans to Paris in September, 1914. THE VALLEY OF THE MARNE 33 A national highway and a main railwaj Chemin de Fer de l'j?pt — which ascend the valley of the Marne on the way from Paris Fig. 9. Valley of the Marne at Meaux, lookinq East to Nancy, make short cuts across the vallcy-side spurs; the IiIkIi- way ia the shorter of the two lines, because it can follow steeper 34 THE REGION AROUND PARIS gradients than the railway; both are much shorter than the river, as is shown in Fig. 9. It was across this sinuous valley that the French under General Joffre drove back the Germans in the Battle of the Marne in September, 1914. Another highway and a main railway — Chemin de Fer de Paris a Lyon et a la Mediterran^e, the so-called " P. L. M." — turn from the upper Seine valley into that of the Yeres, in order to make a direct cut southeastward across the lowland, thus saving a detour to the west made by the Seine itself, which they rejoin about midway in its valley through the upland, and there Melun is situated ; farther upstream, where the valley is deeper, it is more closely followed by the highway and the railway. The two lines a little beyond the point where they leave the Seine for their short cut are shown in Fig. 8. 16. The Strata and the Soils of the Eastern Sector. The east- ern sector offers an excellent illustration of the relation which Fig. 10. Structure of the Brie Upland exists between rock structure — a subject which is too com- monly set aside as belonging only to geology — and surface conditions. The basin strata in this sector dip gently to the west at a slightly steeper angle than the inclination of the surface, as shown in Fig. 10; hence as they are cut across by the Seine and the Marne, their occasional outcrops appear in slanting belts on the valley sides, which vary in form and soil as they pass from belt to belt. The most resistant strata are the impure limestones (calcaire grossier) which form the strong east-facing escarpment where the upland of Brie falls off toward the lowland of Champagne, as will be further de- scribed in chapter VIII. It is noteworthy that, as a result of the strata being inclined at a steeper angle than the gentle despent of the surface as SOILS OF THE BRIE UPL.\ND 35 shown in I-^ig. 10, their uppermost (youngest) members in this sector are reached on the lowest ground, while the lower- most (oldest) members of this district occupy the upland — but as will be seen later, still lower members occur in the low- lands farther east. As the successive strata overlap the slop- ing surface, the soils vary, and with variation of soils comes variation of living conditions. The strata that overlie the calcaire grassier and cover most of the Brie uplands weather into a poor, " cold " or wet soil, which was formerl}^ left to forest growth, and which even \vhere cleared and cultivated today does not give so good a return as the calcareous soils of the lower slope or as the loams of the lowlands farther west. These more fertile lowland areas have long been known for their tliriving farms, each having its group of buildings enclosed by a rectangular wall, half a mile or more from its neiglibors, instead of being compacted in villages such as are described above as having grown around the springs in the slopes of the uplands on the south of Paris, or such as will be described in section 5G, grouped around the deep wells of the northwestern chalk country. It must be remem- bered that these varied relations between geographical factors and human conditions have long been well established in a country' of so ancient settlementas France, where the mannerof living and the loca- tion of settlements have been developed by primitive methods of trial aflai)ted to simple, local needs through centuries of struggle for exi.steiice, and where satisfactory locations and occupations, when found, have been long adhered to. Frencli geography is therefore in thii3 respect utterly unlike the geography of the western United States, where the location of many a village has been arl)itrarily determined by conditions little related to geograi^hical factors. 17. The Northern Sector. The broad sector north of Paris combines some of the features of its two neighbors. Its central part i.s chi(,'fly a rolling lowland, similar in form and soil to the lower i)art of fhc eastern sector; but the lowland is here sur- 36 THE REGION AROUND PARIS mounted by a number of hills or upland remnants, mostly of small area, although in composition and altitude similar to the large uplands of the southern sector. One of the smallest of the hills, of less height than the larger ones, is Montmartre, in the northern part of Paris; a chain of hills, about 20 k. in length, begins in the Butte Chaumont on the northeastern border of Paris and extends eastward in a rambling course to the north bank of the Marne. A range of hills begins 35 k. northeast of Paris and trends northwest; the southeastward prolongation of this line into the valley of the Marne marks the site of Meaux. A small ridge (170 m.) is tangent to the two northward loops of the Seine, 15 k. northwest of Paris; north of this ridge rise the subdivided heights of Mont- morency (182 m.), of oval area, 9 k. in length, 18 k. north- northwest of Paris; the little upland of Hautie (170 m.) of similar dimensions stands 30 k. to the northwest of the city, a short distance west of the confluence of the Seine and Oise, across the third southern loop of the trunk river below Paris. Nearly all the isolated hills near Paris are crowned by for- tresses and redoubts, formerly regarded as impregnable but now known not to be of sufficient strength to withstand bombardment by the heavy siege guns of modern warfare. The far northeastern uplands of the northern sector, from which the Germans were driven after the Battle of the Marne in September, 1914, and the northern extension of the sector in " irregular, plateau-like segments beyond the east-west valley of the Aisne, where the battle front lies in the spring of 1918, will be described in chapter IX. The present account will not go beyond the upland area, known as Valois, which is limited on the north by the Aisne valley. The gradual ascent from the lowland (69-90 m.) near Paris to the Valois uplands (150-170 m.) is accompanied by changes in soil similar to THE SECTOR NORTH OF PARIS 37 those described for the eastern sector; but while the ascend- ing surface was there comparatively continuous, except for a moderate number of radial valleys, it is here more interrupted by many rambling valleys, drained by branches of the Ourcq, Aisne, and Oise, as shown in Fig. 5. The upland is furthermore occasionally surmounted by hills, the most important of wliich constitute a narrow, east-west range about 13 k. south of the Aisne vallej^: it is 35 k. in length and from 200 to 250 m. in altitude, and is cut through by a small stream at mid-length; the eastern lialf is mostly cleared; much of the western half is covered by the great forest of Villers-Cotterets, which also spreads across the uplands to the north and south ; like most of the larger forests of France, this one is traversed by a system of lanes arranged in geometrical pattern, chiefly for use in management and exploitation. The northern margin of the upland overlooking the Aisne valley, like the margin of the rambling valleys which dissect the upland, is irregularly indented b}- the branching ra\ancs of many small side streams. The general accordance of the upland level across the valleys, as well as the correspondence that may be noted in the rock layers on the two sides of the valleys, proves clearly enough that the upland would be a continuous surface but for the work of weather and streams in eroding valleys beneath it. This is a point of practi- cal importance, since it shows that when one valley-bounded segment of the upland is known, the neighboring segments may be known in a general way from it, for they all resemble one another in essential features, such as altitude, structure, and general pattern, although they differ from each other in individual features, such as extent, and the number and rlircction of infjenting ravines. It is the uncounted individual variations tlius played on a simple sclienie that charac- terize the Valois landscape. 18. The WeHleni Saliait.s uf the Northern ASeclur. The north- western part of the northern sector west of the Oise may be named after the district of Vexin, which it includes. Its western border resembles the .eastern border of the eastern 443.1 38 THE REGION AROUND PARIS sector in being determined by the gradual ascent of the rela- tively resistant calcaire grassier, which terminates in an escarpment overlooking an exterior lower land of weaker layers; but in the Vexin on the northwestern side of the Paris basin the ascent of the strata and the outlook of the escarp- ment are to the northwest, while in the Brie on the other side of the basin center they are to the east. The west-facing Vexin border is more irregular than the east-facing Brie border; its uplands advance westwards in several salients between low- land reentrants, and the advancing salients are cut off in sepa- rate upland areas of different size by the valley of the Oise, which crosses the lowland reentrants, as shown on the map, p. 28. As a result the Oise valley varies greatly in width and quality; it is rather narrow and well enclosed where it tran- sects the resistant limestone strata of the upland salients; it is broadly open where it traverses the weaker strata of lowland reentrants. Here is the most open approach to Paris. The first of the reentrants occurs just below the confluence of the Aisne and the Oise; it is occupied to the east of the Oise by the forest of Compiegne, called after a city of that name near the conflu- ence. To the southwest of Compiegne, two contiguous cut-off salients (110-150 m.) divided by the river Breche, advance northwestward; Clermont lies on the eastern border of the larger one. Another low- land reentrant is crossed b}^ the Oise half way from the Aisne to the Seine; this will be referred to later in the account of the Pays de Bray, p. 140. The next salient forms a large upland which spreads southward to the Seine; its westernmost spurs (160 m.) are cut off from the main area by the south-flowing Epte. The upland of this salient is unlike the others in being surmounted by several small hills (190, 200 m.), like those near Paris but of greater altitude because the platform from which they rise is higher than the Paris lowland. 19. Paris audits Neighborhood. The military visitor to Paris may find difficulty in selecting among its many attractions the few to which his limited time can be best devoted. If he passively follow THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF PARIS 39 the conventional guidebook, he will be led, whether his tastes are artistic or not, to matchless galleries of painting and sculpture; or to famous buildings and monuments, whetlier or not he knows enough of history and architecture to appreciate them; but if his tastes are geographical, he will do well to select certain districts of medieval and modern Paris as samples for outdoor study. These should include parts of the old central city of narrow, irregular streets, and sections of the older and newer ramparts, marked by the ring of inner boulevards and of outer dismantled fortifications. A number of new avenues, cut through the older parts of the citj^, are striking and characteristic features. Excursions to high points of view are next to be commended; first, in the city, to the Butte Chaumont on the east, to Montmartre on the north, and to the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower on the west ; the wide prospect from the top of the Arc, if permission be secured to make the ascent, is especially to be commended, with its Wew eastward down the finest avenue in the world — the Avenue of the Champs Elys^es — to the Garden of the Tuileries, and westward to Neuilly and the Bois de Boulogne and across the loop of the Seine. Later, \'isits should be made outside of the city to the heights on the south near Meudon, and on the west above St. Cloud. A trip on the river is to be recommended; here a hand map is es- sential, in order not to lose one's bearings on the many river turns. The different parts of Paris and the towns of familiar names near by, Fig. 11, are best learned in relation to the loops of the .■-^eine, to its right (north) and left (south) banks, and to the up- lands of the northern and southern sectors, above described. As to the river loops or meanders, let it be understood that the normal relation of valley-side spur, flood-plain scroll, and river meander is remarkably well shown at and below Paris: the spurs slope gradu- ally to their end and their down-valley side; the spur end and its down-valley side are adjoined by a flood-plain scroll; the river flows along the steeper up-valley slope of each spur, and around the base of the opfKisite amphitheatre in the vallfy side. With these i^oint.s in mind, it is ea.sy to remember that Vincennes and its wood.s, the Bois de Vincennes, lie cast of Paris, north of the confluence of the Seine and Marne; Belleville is on the chain of hills rif-ar thf Butt^; Chaumf»nt; the center of Paris lies on the right bank of the first northward bend beh^w the confluence of the Seine 40 THE REGION AROUND PARIS I Iff A»««i' ^' V\\l ,#4#" t lW'W+f=i>^ #'fe^ -=:-^-ti;^^^ THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF PARIS 41 and the Marne; part of the flat flood-plain scroll which fits into this northward bend along the left bank of the Seine in the western part of the city is occupied by the parade ground of the Champs de Mars. Farther along the same bank is the suburb of Crenelle, where a famous artesian well, dependent for its flow upon the basin structure of the region, serves as an important source of water supply, though supplemented by other wells and more largely by surface aqueducts from neighboring valleys. The steep slope of the opposite amphitheatre rises to the Troca- d^ro, from which a long spur declines gradually southwestward with Passy on its steep eastern side along the right bank of the river; the flood-plain scroll that wraps around the west side of this spur and fits into the first southward loop of the river is occupied by Bou- logne-sur-Seine (57,027) with its Bois and by Neuilly, lately famous for its American hospital ; part of the plain between these two towns is utilized for the level racecourse of Longchamps. Se\Tes and St. Cloud are on the left bank in the amphitheatre south of Bou- logne; the famous fortress of Mt. Val^rien is on top of the spur, north of St. Cloud; St. Denis and Argenteuil mark the beginning and end of the amphitheatral slope around the first northward loop below Paris; St. Germain lies on the farther part of the next am- phitlieatre, which encloses the second southward loop, and its forest covers the spur which extends into the second northward loop; at the farther turn of this loop the Seine is joined by the Oise, on which Pontoise lies at the crossing of an ancient road. Poissy lies at the beginning of the next amphitheatre into which the third southern loop enters; and so on. The degree to wliioh the centralization of government, arts, indus- tries, and traffic in Paris has been carried may be judged by the numlxT of railways and national roads that converge to it, as the spokes of a wheel converge to the hub. A circle of 25 k. radius drawn around Paris cuts the main lines and various l)ranches of the five chief railway systems of the West, the North, the East, the P. L. M. (Pari.s-Lyons-Slediterranean), and Orleans at some 15 points; it cuts also a similar number of national roads directed to as many iriijxjrtaiit cities, sonn- of which, like liordeaux to the southwest, Lyons to the southeast, and Hale in northern Switzerland, are 400 or 500 k. distant; short stretches of the roads to Lyons, BAle, and Nancy are sJiown in Figs. 8 and D. 42 THE REGION AROUND PARIS The following pages are planned to make a circuit of the successive parts of the Paris basin, beginning on the east, and passing around by the north to the northwest, thus including as much of France as lies northeast of the Marne and the Belfort ;^ j^ - rt^<^ ZSl" Fig. 12. Index of Outline Maps lower Seine. Brief accounts of adjacent regions farther north- east are added. The location of the outline maps which represent the areas described is indicated in Fig. 12; the maps will be referred to in the order here given from 1 to 7; the page numbers adjoining the map numbers indicate where the large-scale maps can be found. CHAPTER IV THE EASTERN HALF OF THE PARIS BASIN 20. The Belted Relief of Xortheasiern France. The concen- tric belts in which the stratified formations outcrop in the eastern half of the Paris basm from the Central Highlands on the south to the Ardennes on the north, and the corre- spondingly concentric arrangement of uplands (shaded and numbered from 1 to 8 in Fig. 13) and lower lands (unshaded) following the outcrops of stronger and weaker strata, like aureoles around the Paris center, are the leading physio- graphic features of northeastern France. There are indeed no better illustrations of this kind of topography in the known world. As the variety of features is large, their description cannot be short. Each belt of weak strata is worn down, as in Fig. 14, in an un.symmetrical depression, limited on the east by the long and gentle ascent of the next underlying resistant strata, and on the west by the steep scarp of the next overlying resistant strata. Conversely, each belt of resistant strata remains in relief as an unsyrametrical upland ridge, having a broad crest with a steep escarpment or scarp descending eastward to the depression excavated on the next underlying weak strata, and a long gradual .^loi)e descending westward to the depression excavated on the next overlying weak strata. Hence the " grain " of the rehef in this half of the Paris basin follows a series of upland belts arrange(l in concentric arcs, convey eastward, as above noted. 43 44 EASTERN HALF OF THE PARIS BASIN The eight upland belts are by no means alike. The first is of strong relief; the second is lower and of more delicate form; the third is the shortest of the series; the fourth and fifth are long and strong; the sixth is less distinct; the seventh is the least developed of all, and is characterized more by its limestone soils than by an unsymmetrical ridge form; the eighth is strong along the western border of the Vosges, but elsewhere is marked chiefly by its infertile sandy soils. The intermediate depressions also vary in dimensions and in form : it should be understood that, although unshaded in Fig. 13, they are not always lowlands of small altitude above sea level, nor are they always plains; some of them have a rolling or hilly surface 100 m. or more in altitude; but they are always lower than the adjoining upland belts. The resistant strata which determine an upland belt frequently crop out in bare ledges, or are covered only by a thin stony soil in the upper part of the steep scarp and over the broad crest of the upland; the weak strata, on the other hand, which are worn down in the longitudinal depression between two upland belts are usually concealed under a deep soil; the same is true of the lower slopes beneath the steep scarp on one side of an upland belt and on the long descent of the other side. Some of the upland belts are called cotes by the French, but the word has no special meaning; the Spanish etymological equivalent, cuesta (pronounced in two syllables, kwes-ta), locally employed for certain unsymmetrical upland ridges on our Mexican frontier, has been adopted by a number of American geographers as a special name for forms of this kind and will here be sometimes used. The steep scarp of a cuesta is often called its face; and the long slope of the other side is called its back. The unsymmetrical depression or lowland between two cuestas has no technical name; it can hardly be called a " valley," because it is drained by many streams instead of by one. While the upland belts are thus arranged in concentric arcs, the valleys of the larger rivers are otherwise disposed. UPLAND BELTS OF NORTHEASTERN FRANCE 45 200 *00 K. ¥lO. 13. I'ilVHKX.KAI'llIC I'EATt'BEB OF NoRTHEABTEKN P'RANCB 46 EASTERN HALF OF THE PARIS BASIN A number of rivers flow in roughly radial fashion, converging toward Paris; and as travel and transportation are today conducted chiefly along the river valleys, it follows that the inter-upland depressions are of secondary importance as lines of movement. Nevertheless it is primarily in terms of the Fig. 14. Upland Belts and upland belts and the depressions between them that the physical features of the half -basin east of Paris are best pre- sented; after they are apprehended, the river and valleys, the Fig. 15. The Steep Scarp of an Upland Belt cities, railways, and other features can be duly located with respect to them. 21. ,The Upland Belts as Natural Defences. Without includ- ing the tabular hills of uppermost sandstones already described on the south of Paris, all but one of the eight more or less con- tinuous upland belts, separated by longitudinal depressions and varying greatly in height, breadth, and pattern, are crossed by a radial line 350 k. in length from the basin center to the Vosges. The number would be increased if several subordinate cuesta-like belts or benches were counted. UPL.\ND BELTS AS NATUR.\L DEFENCES 47 It has long been reniarkcd that this aiTangement of the rcHef, which presents gentle slopes and broad crests for occu- pation by the home forces, and steep scarps to invaders from the cast, provides a series of natural defences against an attack from \\\c German frontier; but the defences were rEKMEDlATE DeI'KESSIONS overcome in 1870 by the superior organization and prompt mobilization of the Germans, who advanced rapidly across tlif Lorraine saddle and over the upland belts to Paris. Since — - " ■fcTiir'- Fig. 10. The Long Back Slope of an Upland Belt then the natural defences of the northeastern frontier have been reenforced by the construction of the chain of fortresses above-named — Belfort, Epinal, Toul. V. (»(), and thus bring t«i th:it river the drainage of tlie broad lowland, known as the W'ucitc, wiiicli there 50 EASTERN HALF OF THE PARIS BASIN lies between the fifth and the fourth upland belts: one such stream heads at a point where the fourth upland is exceptionally narrow; and it is there that the Germans, advancing from Metz, pushed for- ward their front in a salient which overlaps the scarp of the fourth upland and includes St. Mihiel on the chord-valley of the Meuse, as will be stated more in detail in section 39. If the details pre- sented here and on the following pages seem complicated, let it be Fig. 18. An Upland Belt with a Detached Segment remembered that they are much simpler than the varied forms of nature. It may be noted that the upland belts or cuestas are not so easily recognized on a large-scale map as on the ground, for the downward view of a map shows the many valleys by which an upland and the adjoining depressions may be dissected, and therefore does not set forth the unity of the upland nearly so well as when it is seen in outdoor nature. But outdoor views of the uplands may also fail to reveal their true character if they are seen from the floors of the larger transverse valleys that are followed by the chief routes of travel; for if, as is often the case, the intermediate depressions as well as the uplands are trenched by the transverse valley that an observer follows, an upland seen from the bottom of such a valley may be regarded simply as a hill somewhat higher than its neighbors, LACK OF NAMES FOR UPLAND BELTS 51 and the long contiuuit}- of its relief will not be recognized. It is in the almost horizontal views from hilltops, whence all the valleys but those in the foreground disappear, as in Fig. 15, that the con- tinuity of an upland belt is best jxTccivcd, especially if its front rises only 50 or 00 in. above an adjoining dissected depression. It would greatly facilitate the description of the upland belts if each one had a name for itself, but even the strongest of them vary so much in form and are cut across by so many valleys that their contumity has never been recognized in pojiular nomenclature. The habit followed by some geographers of designating the belts by the names of the geological formations to which their strata belong — as bathonien, bajocien, kimmcridgien, etc. — -is unsatisfactory, because such names are technical and unfamiliar, and because atten- tion is thereby turned too much from their exterior form to their interior constitution. They miglit be named after the cities that lie upon or in front of them; thus the fifth could be called the Langres- Xancy-Metz cuesta; but such compound names are not convenient for frequent use. The device of numbering the belts eastward from Paris, as in Fig. 13, has at Iea.st the merit of simplicity and of giving easy indication of their relative positions, but the numbers thus employed are not in current use in France. One reason for the lack of simple geographical names for the up- land belts is that manj' of them are so long tluit they pass from one ancient historical province or modern political division to another; and as the leading French students of geography have entered the subject from the historical rather than from the physiographic side, even tho}' have not yot introduced generally accepted names for these striking features. Partial exception to this statement may be made for the third and shortest belt, which lies chiefly in the western part of the district of Argonne and which, being forested for much of its length, is known as the Fctrest of .Vrgonne; but this name is not ai)i)lied to its northwesternmost extension. CHAPTER V THE VOSGES AND THE ADJOINING REGIONS 23. The Highlands of the Vosges. The eastern side of the Paris basin is Hmited by the Vosges (German, Vogesen, or Wasgau Gebirge), a mountainous highland which should be considered, as shown in Fig. 19, in association with the similar highland of the Black Forest (German, Schwarzwald) , 45 k. farther east, beyond which a covering series of stratified for- mations slopes gently eastward toward the basin of the upper Danube and thus roughly corresponds to the series of covering r- Fig. 19. The Vosges Mountains, the Valley strata which slopes westward from the Vosges into the Paris basin. Between the two upheaved highlands lies a sunken belt, trending north and south and forming the broad valley- lowland that is followed by the middle Rhine in the stretch from its narrow passage by Bale (German, Basel) between the Black Forest and the Jura mountains on the south, to its entrance into the narrow gorge through the Slate mountains, 280 k. to the north. In consequence of this structural arrangement, both of the upheaved highlands have steep slopes toward the intermediate sunken area, and more gradual slopes toward the basins of overlapping strata. 52 REGION OF THE VOSGES 53 The Vosges proper, consisting in great part of resistant rrystalline rocks, increase in breadth from 30 k. in the north to 50 k. in the south, and measure about 110 k. in length along their north-south crest, where their height ranges from 1000 to 1400 m. The highest point is the Ballon de Guebwiller, 142t) m. in altitude, near the southern end of the highland. The summits are usually rounded, dome-like masses, covered with forests for the most part, though the highest domes are treeless above 1300 m.; but many valley heads, especially on the eastern slope, are steep and craggy. The broad crest of the highland is .so little notched that no railroads cross it, tlidugli branch lines enter the valleys on cither side. The crest f)f tlie Vosges is however traversed by several roads, which like the railroads follow the valley bottoms into the moun- tains as far as the ascent is not too steep, but which on reaching the iE Rhine, and the Black Forest steeper valley heads continue alone in zigzag detours to accomplish their object of rising to the crest without strong gradients. Thus a raihvuy and a highway enter the eastern slope from Sclilestadt by the oblicjue valley of the Liepvrette; the railway ends at the village of Stc. Marie aux Mines (380 m. ? ; Cierman, Mnrkirch); the highway continues in zigzags to a pa.ss (780 m.) near the mid- length of the raiiKr', and descends similarly to the upper valley of the Meurthe where it meets a railway at St. Die Ci.")!) m.); tiie direct • listance In'tween tlie two railways is Ki k. Similarly a railway and a hiKhway a.scend from Molsheim by the ol)li(iue valley of the Hruche in tlu- northern Vosges to the valley head; there the highway con- tinues over a notch and descends to a railway on a headwater branch of the .Meurthe northea.st of St. Did, but on the French slope 54 THE VOSGES AND ALSACE Fig. 20. The Vosges and the Valley of the Rhine ALSACE 55 the road is not so well constructed. Again in the southern Vosges, a railway and a highway from MuUiouse ascend the valley of the Thur; the highway zigzags over a pass and meets a railway on a head branch of the Moselle. Xe.xt to the southwest one of the finest of the moun- tain roads lies altogether in French territory as it passes near an angle of the frontier from a railway at the head of the INIoselle southward over a shoulder of the Ballon d'Alsace (1244 m.) near the southern end of the range, and, descending, joins a railway leading to the fortress of Belfort: its repeated zigzags lace across a convex spur on the north side of the pass, and around a concave ravine head on the south side. The steep eastern slope of the Vosges, deeply dissected by many narrow valleys and ravines, is heavily forested. E.xcept near the southern end of the range, the larger valleys trend obliquely north- eastward; the spurs between them are elaborately carved by side ra\ines. A knob (German, A'op/) at the end of a spur (936 m.) on the eastern slope of the Vosges near their southern end and 20 k. east of the crest line, named Hartmannswillerkopf (" the knob of Hart- mann's hamlet ") from a village at its base, has become notorious during the present war from being occupied by the French; it sur- mounts the plain by over GOO m. The broad lowland of the middle Rhine, east of the highland slope, measures 40 k. in width; near the higliland base it is occupied by rolling hills of small relief at an altitude of 200 or 300 m., and farther east by a broad and Hat river plain I.jO or 200 m. in altitude. The western part of the plain 10 k. cast of the highland base is drained northward by the 111, which rises in the Belfort depression south of the ^'osges; 15 k. east of the 111 is the Rhinf, which formerly flowed in many tangled or braided channels, but wliich is now artificially restrained to a single chaimel of gentle curvature through umch of its course: near the junction of the two sub-parallel rivers east of the northern end of the Vosges lies the famous city of Strasbourg (German, Strassburg; 17S,S91.) 24. Alyacr. The present boundary hctwoon France and (jerinany lies, as uIka'c noted, along the crest of the N'osges. All th(.' eastern slope of the highland and the plain below it as far as liie Rhine, from tiie Swi.ss boundary at Bdlc past 56 THE VOSGES AND ADJOINING REGIONS Mulhouse (German, Mulhausen; 95,041) and Colmar and be- yond Strasbourg, formerly constituted the French province of Alsace. Since 1871 the province has been German territory under the name of Elsass. The people here habitually speak two languages, and most places have two names, one French, one German. In 1872, 45,000 of the inhabitants withdrew into France in order to avoid becoming German subjects: many more French citizens, equally loyal yet unable to move away, were constrained to change their nationality; but they are "frangais quand meme!" 25. The Uplands West of the Vosges. West of the Vosges crest line, the mountainous area has its greatest extension be- tween the upper Moselle and Meurthe, where the ridges (750- 950 m.), mostly forested, are divided by a labyrinth of irregu- larly branching valleys, from 200 to 400 m. in depth. The main valleys of the Moselle and the Meurthe follow generally northwestward courses; their floors have a width of one or two kilometers ; their descent is more gradual than that of the narrow, eastern valleys. Two lakes (Gerardmer, 631 m., Longemer, 716 m.) occur in branch valleys of the upper Moselle. St. Die lies on the Meurthe within the margin of the mountains; the strongly fortified city of Epinal is at the mountain margin 40 k. farther west on the Moselle. Beyond the mountains the relief diminishes to a more moderate measure as the crystalline rocks are irregularly overlapped by the lowest strata, the eighth and seventh belt-makers, of the Paris-basin series. The district which extends west of the Vosges to the sixth upland belt is occupied by the lowest sandstones and lime- stones of the Paris-basin series (Fig. 21). The basal member or eighth belt-maker is a resistant sandstone, which weathers to an infertile soil and is therefore generally forested. It is UPLANDS WEST OF THE VOSGES 57 frequently strong enough to rise in high uplands or ridges (550-800 m.) along the mountain margin. It is followed on the northwest by the rolling uplantls of the broad seventh belt (275-350 m.)- composetl chiefly of limestone strata which protluce a fertile soil and are therefore generally cleared and cultivated. These strata are usually without distinct topo- graphic expression as a broad cuesta or unsymmetrical ridge; but in certain areas their edge determines a well defined east -facing scarp. Their rolling surface declines gently west- wartl, and at distance of some 40 k. from the Vosges, they are overlapped by stronger limestones which rise in a wcW ' ^^ JS^^O^^^ ^^B 81!- -!-5tn-J-^^!?»=;c--i— — *,- ~=rF:; . ■.*...„-. .- Fig. 21. Thk Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Belts West OF THE Vosges marked scarp to the higher surface (350-400 m.) of the sixth upland belt, sometimes forested but more generally cleared. The general trend of the eightli and .seventh Ix-lts hcroahouts is from southwest to northeast: thus thoy enter well into France west of the .s(jutliern \'osges, where they adjoin the saddle of the Langres plateau, as shown on the map, p. 69; while to tlie northeast of the frrjiitier they extend far beyond the northern Vosges into Clerniany, where tliey form the Lorraine plateau and th(> Ilardt, to he described in ('hapt<'r XIII. Within French territory, the two belts are cut almost .sfjuarely across by the valleys of the Meurthe and the Mos<'lle, and they will therefore be described in three .seetions: the first, about 2(J k. wide, fnun the frontier to the Meurthe valley; the s<-cond. about .'iO k. wide, between the two valleys; the third, extending '>() k. southwest of the Moselle valley. In the section to the iKjrthcast of the Meurthe, llie basal sandstones of the eighth belt are locally doubled, us above 58 THE VOSGES AND ADJOINING REGIONS figured, in two mountainous, forested ridges. The first ridge, from 600 to 800 m. in altitude, is separated from the irregu- larly subdivided hills and mountains of the crystalline rocks on the southeast by the valley of the Rabodeau, and from the second ridge, which seldom exceeds 700 m. in altitude, by the valley of tlie Plaine river; both of these streams flow south- west to the Meurthe. To the northeast, beyond the frontier, the high sandstone hills flanking the Vosges are irregularly dissected by the headwaters of the Sarre. The sandstones are followed on the northwest by the overlying limestones, which form a lower rolling surface subdivided by the valleys of the Vezouse, the Sanon, and their branches, partly shown on the 1 : 100,000 map, pages 60, 61. When regarded northeastward from favorable points of view, the general profile of the cleared hills which make up the rolling surface between the main vallej^s may be seen to rise toward the moun- tains, thus forming the seventh upland belt, and then fall off in a low scarp before the ascent of the first sandstone ridge is begun : but the scarp is so often cut back by many little valleys and ravines that its scalloped front has little continuity : these features are continued northeastward, beyond the frontier. If the rolling surface is followed northwestward, residual hills of the next overlying strata, mostly forested, are found along the divide between the Sanon and the Seille near the frontier, between the Sanon and Vezouse, and less distinctly between the Vdzouse and the Meurthe; then bej'ond the junction of the Sanon and the Meurthe a well defined scarp rises to the broad surface (350-400 m.) of the sixth upland belt, which will be followed from south to north in a later paragraph. The streams by which this section is limited and divided have the habit, like many others in this region, of flowing in a very irregular course on the flat floor of a winding valley, one or two k. wide; a reason for this behavior will be suggested in the account of the Meuse,in section 38. It was in this district, between the Vosges on the southeast and the sixth upland belt on the northwest, that the German army in August, 1914, crossed the upper Meurthe and advanced half way \'ALLEYS OF THE MEURTHE AND THE MOSELLE 59 over the hills to the upper Moselle; they were later forced back almost to the frontier, northeast of the Meurthe, where the fighting front lias since remained with little change. Ruined villages, such as \'itrimont on the Meurthe below Lun6ville and Gerb^viller on the Mortagne, mark the temporarily invaded area. The chief cit\' of this area is Luneville, on the widened valley floor (230 m.) at the confluence of the Vezouse and the Meurthe. The Eastern railway, coming from Paris and Xancy, ascends the Meurthe valley to this point and then turns up the Vezouse toward the frontier. Branch lines run up other valleys to the Vosges, and up the Moselle to Epinal and beyond. The valleys are also followed by branching highways. An important canal, crossing the Meuse and the Moselle on its way from the Marne to the Rhine, turns from the valley of the ^Meurthe and ascends that of the Sanon to the frontier, the irregular course of w^hich is described in section 27. In the section between the Meurthe and the Moselle, which is unequall}' divided by the intermediate valley of the Mor- tagne, the basal sandstones, slanting gently northwest, assume the form of a well defined upland belt (700 m.) somewhat southeast of the line connecting St. Di6 and Epinal, with a strong frontal scarp toward the Vosges; but instead of being continuous, the upland is irregularly incised by many narrow valleys, and the scarp is worn into a frayed-out pattern. These details of form are beautifully displayed in the elabo- rately dissected upland area west of St. Di6, which bears the Mortagne and other forests; yet coniplicated as the area is when seen in plan, all its parts are merely the dissevered elements of a cuesta-like upland; and the recognition of this fact greatly facilitates the appreciation of many details that might otherwise seem unrelated. 60 THE VOSGES AND ADJOINING REGIONS Fig. 22. The Frontier on th: THE FRONTIER ON THE SIXTH UPLAND BELT 61 ..V-:,. ""-^^^^4^ H'M.TirriiiJiUj.y i-. -A', •' ■.• ,,,; :---^ <^-'.|^ [evknth Upland Bklt 62 THE VOSGES AND ADJOINING REGIONS The following limestone belt repeats the features above described, except that more of its uplands are forested. The tabular limestone surface of the sixth upland belt (350 m.) is well developed, though of moderate extent, in the narrowed space where the Meurthe and the Moselle approach each other. The chief place in this section is the fortified city of Epinal (340 m.), commanding the narrows of the elsewhere open Moselle valley where it cuts through the slanting uplands of the basal sandstones. The third section, southwest of the Moselle, is much more exten- sive than the other two : it is characterized by the great extension of the basal sandstones which here lie nearly horizontal and stretch 30 k. south westward in a tabular upland, cut into separate portions by the narrow valleys of the Coney, Semouse, and Lanterne, head- waters of the Saone. A noticeable feature of this section is a range of hills, known as the Monts Faucilles, which divide the side branches of the Moselle southwest of Epinal from the headwaters of the Saone; the hills are merely remnants of the next strata overlying the sandstones, which are naturally enough not yet completely worn away along the divide. Southwest of the sandstone area the overlying limestones, the seventh belt counting eastward from Paris — see the map on p. 69 — rise in a well defined, east-facing scarp west of the uppermost Saone, and the upland surface beyond declines gently westward to the head branches of the Meuse; hence a cuesta-Hke upland is here formed with much more distinct expression than in the same limestone belt farther northeast. 26. The Sixth Upland Belt. The limestones of the sixth belt form a well-marked upland, 400 m. in altitude, with a dis- tinct east-facing scarp, cut into many scallops by transverse streams. Near its southern beginning, it forms the divide between western branches of the Saone and the head of the Marne; from 20 to 40 k. farther north it is obliquely cut through by several branches of the Meuse which rise on the back slope of the seventh upland belt. The longitudinal de- pressions which adjoin the upland on either side are not VALLEYS OF THE MOSELLE AND THE MEUSE 63 smooth surfaces, but are incised by the vallej-s of the obhque streams, though to a less depth than that of the valleys through the upland. It was on the eastern slope of this upland south of the Meuse branches and on the Apance, a small branch of the upper Saone, that a super-Zeppelin, " L-49," was forced by five French aeroplanes to land during its return from a raid on England. It was capable of making 5.5 or GO miles an hour, with a crew of IS men, two machine guns, and two tons of bombs, and had reached a height of 4^ miles over London, where the temperature was — 33° C. with a strong north wind. Some of the men had their hands frozen and were half stupefied with the cold. They were prevented from destroying the airship after landing by a sportsman, who happened upon them; the airship was thus captured intact and carefulh' studied by French e.\p)erts. On the same date the frame of a second airship, set on fire by French guns, fell at St. Clement on the Meurthe above Lun6- ville; and a third was destroyed by its crew after landing in the French Alps. Beyond the Meuse branches, the upland belt turns north- eastward and the upland is obliquely traversed by the north-flowing Madon, which joins the Moselle above Toul; at the entrance of this oblique valley lies Mirecourt: several detached outliers rise southeast of the upland scarp toward Epinal. After resuming its northward course, the upland scarp Is skirted on the east for 15 k. by the Moselle; when this river approaches within 12 k. of the Meurthe, both rivers (low northwestward through oblique gateways in the upland i;elt. A fine view is obtained from the crest of the upland between the two rivers far southeastward, up the two valleys and acro.ss the uplands between them to the Vosges, 50 k. distant: in the opposite; direction, the strong scarp of the fifth upland belt is seen beyond the depression that separates the two uplands. North of the Meurthe, tlie sixth upland l>elt advances northeastward and broadens in somewhat 64 THE VOSGES AND ADJOINING REGIONS tabular form: there it is cut through by the Seille, a small stream of very winding course, which marks the frontier: the further northward extension of the upland will be described in chapter XIII. It is noticeable that the rivers hereabouts do not follow the depression between the sixth and fifth uplands, but cross it and the adjoining uplands with little regard to the relief of the surface. On the other hand the depression, although by no means a level surface, is continuous enough to be followed by lines of communication and occupied by villages, both of which avoid the uplands. The river gateways or gaps through the upland belts open easy lines of travel between the neighboring depressions. 27. The Frontier from the Sixth Upland Belt to the Vosges. The frontier dividing Lothringen from Lorraine, as established in I87I, ascends the incised course of the meandering Seille southeastward through the sixth upland belt, but departs from that small stream on reaching the more open country of the seventh belt and runs across hills and valleys to the Vosges. After crossing the upper Sanon it runs, as in Fig. 22, about halfway between the headwaters of the Vezouse and the Sarre, traverses the double sandstone ridges at the head of the Plaine, and then rises to the mountam crest. Through the middle of this distance of 60 k., the boundary line is not signalized by any striking topographic features: the lime- stone country on one side of it is much like that on the other. The adjoining German area will be described in section 68. It was across the open upland of the seventh belt and thence westward through gaps in the sixth belt within the 70 k. space between the fortresses of Epinal and Toul, that French military writers during the period following the war of 1870 thought the next German attack would be made, and truly enough a strong advance was there attempted, as above noted : but the main line of the German invasion in 1914 was through neutral Belgium. CHAPTER VI FROM THE PLATEAU OF LANGRES TO LORRAINE 28. The Plateau of Laugres. The saddle where the strata of the Paris ba.sin arch over the high depression between the still higher masses of the Vosges on the northeast and the Morvan on the southwest is known in part as the plateau of Langres, from an old fortified town that occupies one of its spurs: the saddle constitutes the northwestern half of the old province of Bourgogne or Burgundy. It is composed of resistant limestones that ascend gradually from the northwest, arch over the saddle at an altitude of 550 m., and descend south- eastward in a rapid and well dissected slope, known as la Cote d'Or, famous for its " Burgundy " vineyards. Tlio slope ('lids in an cscarpniont, 100 or L50 ni. in liciffht, made ragged by tho notches of many small streams, beyond which the broad lowland of the Saone basin — the plain of la Bresse — is outspread. The .Mjutliwestern part of the long and gradual ascent of the platea'u is trenehed and divideil intcj .several long stri])s by the sub- parallel headwaters of the Arman^on, a branch of the Seine system which, more directly than any other, lies in the ui)-stream prolonga- tion of the trunk river between Rouen and Paris. Here from time immemorial travel and trallic between the .southern valley of the Rhone — "Provence" — and northern France have crossed the plateau: a Roman highway, jjlaced on one of the narrow plateau Htrips for safety from attaek, is still traceable for 2') k.; a de- tached hill now known as Ml. Au.xois (4 IS m.) at the end of one of the Ktrip.s in the Hite of Alesia (" Ipsum enit oppidum Alcsia in colle summo, admodum edito loco, ut nisi t)bsi(lione expugnavi non po.s.He videretur "), a stronghold where N'ercingetori.x, who had CI 66 PLATEAU OF LANGRES TO LORRAINE gathered all the tribes of Gaul to his aid, was finally overcome by- Caesar, B.C. 52. The ancient name is still preserved in Alise Ste. Reine, a village at the foot of the hill. The plateau is now crossed by a national road, a canal connecting the Seine and Rhone river sys- tems, and the main line of the " P. L. M." railway which, after ascending the ArmanQon valley near each other, follow different lines over the high ground, but which all come together again at the base of the Cote d'Or, where the city of Dijon (76,847) lies at a valley mouth. 29. The Fifth Upland Belt: Southern Part. The fifth upland belt, maintained by a series of resistant limestones and shown in most of its curved length on the map, p. 69, is one of the most remarkable members of the upland series. Its southern part is divided into two steps, of which the eastern and lower one forms a bench below the higher or main member: but the two parts approach and coalesce farther north. Near the southern beginning of this complex belt, the crest of the main upland is sharply defined with a precipitous but irregular scarp, to the east of which the lower member or bench, the sixth upland belt and the seventh follow in regular order, but with very irregular pattern when seen in plan, as shown in Fig. 23. When it is remembered that access from Germany to the plain {la Bresse) of the Saone through the narrow and hilly gateway between the Vosges and the Jura is guarded by the strong fortress of Belfort, and that advance from the plain of the Saone over the plateau of Langres involves the ascent of the steep Cote d'Or or the traverse of the four benched uplands to the north of it, before the basin of Paris can be entered, it is clear that invasion of France from this side can not be easily accomplished. The ancient walled city of Langres, from which the adjoining plateau takes its name, stands on a sharp spur-end in the main scarp (470 m.) of the fifth belt, where it enjoys a broad eastward view across the bench and the lower belts, and commands the pass (400m.) UPLAND BENCHES EAST OF LANGRES 67 between the headwaters of the Marne and the Saone. This city is one of the few in France situated on the crest of an upland belt; its importance is less now than formerly, for modern tra\tl and traffic by road, canal, and railway pay little heed to the old-fashioned town, perched above the clilTs over the pass; its isolation combined domination with safety in the middle ages, but now turns to its disadvantage. The northwestern slope of the main member of the fifth belt is a forested and sparsely inhabited upland for some distance north of Langres, almost waterless because its determining limestones are pervious to rainfall: it is deeply incised by many northwestward MARNE 1 ' ' ~^^ Fig. 23. Upland Benches East of Langres valleys and ra\anes, and is known as la Montagne to the villagers in the next following depression, which is there called la ValUe. Next north of Langres a road lies near the edge of the lower mem- ber or bench of the fifth belt, so as to avoid the valleys that are incised in its back slope by the headwaters of the Marnc. This winding river, which here pursues a northwestward course, cuts a valley gateway through the main body of the upland; the valley sides decrease in height as the river winds its way through the lower- ing back slope of the upland. A similar through-valley is cut by the Hognon, a branch of the Marne, which comp(ites with the head of the Meu.se for the drainage of the sixth ui)land hereabouts. 30. riu: Fifth i'plaiKl licit: Middle I'«ni(BnBijJ '7 /fcp -'."■•//•JA- tHl AI.U.V Oi nil. .McjSiKLI.K, .^'il .1 II MK Ml. I/. 76 PLATEAU OF LANGRES TO LORRAINE gorge crosses the frontier in the long western slope of the upland belt. These obUque gorges are too narrow and sinuous to be fol- lowed by main roads, several of which cross over the upland; but each gorge is followed by a railway and a secondary road. 33. The Frontier on the Fifth Upland Belt. The irregular and apparently arbitrary course of the frontier with respect to topographic features is strikingly illustrated in this district. It follows the winding course of the Seille through the tabular eastern extension of the sixth upland belt, as already stated; then as that stream turns north along the narrow part of the third upland segment, the frontier passes obliquely over the segment, crosses the open valley of the Moselle north of Pont-a-Mousson, traverses the crest of the main body of the fifth upland by a most rambling course, and turns northward on its western slope, as shown in part on the detailed maps, pp. 74, 75, and 78, 79, and also in Fig. 28. The fortified city of Metz, German since 1871, lies as above noted on the Moselle (170 ra.) just north of its exit from the incised valley; here the upland (350 m.) is strong and intact; the map on pages 78 and 79 shows its cleared upper surface, with its scarp, irregularly frayed out and forest covered, from the summits of which an exten- sive eastward view over the Lorraine plateau may be gained; the map also shows the low bench fronting the scarp base and the open floor of the Moselle valley, where an ancient Roman road still in use, a highway, and a railway are laid between the bench and the river. The river, after receiving the Seille at the northern end of the de- tached segment of the upland, flows 30 k. northward near the base of the bold upland scarp, before bending to the northeast to flow through the sixth upland belt, as will be further described in the account of the Lorraine plateau in chapter XIIL Thionville (Ger- man, Diedenhofen) lies at the bend (148 m.); the fifth upland belt (400 m.) here presents a scarp with the unusual height of 250 m. The frontier hereabouts, although truly irregular, is not arbitrarily located: its course over the fifth upland belt was IRON ORES OF THE FIFTH IPLAXD BELT 77 deterniined after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 by the advice of a (Jerman geologist, who pointed out that this upland is rich in vakiable iron ore (niinctte), of especial importance in the Bessemer process of steel making, and that by shifting the frontier from the base of the upland scarp, where it was at first proposed, a few kilometers to the west a large share of the ore beds woukl be transferred to Ger- many. For this reason the frontier, after crossing the Moselle between Pont-a-Mousson and Metz and ascending the upland scarp, runs irregularly northward on the western slope of the upland: from the mines there located a great share of Ger- many's iron supply was drawn before 1914. Many sinelting furnaces have been erected in the Moselle valley, the coal used there being brought from the Sarre basin in the Lor- raine plateau to the east, to be described in a later section. To IVance was left only a lower and more western part of the iron-ore beds, known as the liricy area, from a town situated on the western slope of the upland. Tlie entire iron-ore field of this area also has been in possession of Germany since August, 1914, and has made it pfj.ssible, even with war in progress, to double her previous enormous jjroduction of iron and steel. 34. The Woevre Lowland. The lowland between the fifth and fourth upland belts, for 80 k. north of the elbow of the Moselle at Toul, expands to a notable breadth because the belts are here wide-spaced, and receives a special name, le W'oeire. The maximum widtii oi the lowland is lo k.; its gently rolling surface has an altitude of about 230 m.; many artificial ponds are held in its shallow valleys; extensive forests overspread its low hills: its central area is, as above noted, drained eastward through the fifth upland ix'lt to the Mfjselje by the Rui)t de M;i(i and the ( )rne. This lowland will be referred to again in connecti(jn with \'ei(hin, in the fourth upland belt. 78 PLATEAU OF LANGRES TO LORRAINE FiQ. 27. The Fifth Upland Belt and tui THE MOSELT^E NORTH OF METZ 79 WUJfl iJ/t VaLI-KY ok 'IHK MobfcLLK, Nulc'IH OF MkTZ 80 PLATEAU OF LANGRES TO LORRAINE 35. The Fifth and Sixth Upland Belts: Northernmost Parts. About 10 k. north of Thionville the fifth upland belt turns westward and so continues for nearly 150 k., as shown on the outline maps, p. 69 and p. 153. Some 30 k. farther north the sixth belt, returning from its northeastward detour into Germany (see section 71), also trends westward along the slope that gradually ascends northward to the Ardennes high- land. Both belts are much scalloped b}^ the notches of south- flowing streams: the back or southward slope of the belts is usually cleared. Within and north of the sixth belt (the seventh belt is not represented) the rising slope of the Ar- dennes is deeply incised by the remarkably serpentine valley of the Semois. The Luxembourg frontier, which is here inter- posed for 8 k. between German Lorraine and Belgium, and the Belgian frontier for a small part of its length lie on the fifth upland, as shown in Fig. 28. The sixth upland belt hereabouts is not limited on its exterior or northern side by a well defined scarp, but merges into the ascend- ing slope of the Ardennes; its broadly arched liills differ from those farther north more in their calcareous soil than in their form. The continuity of the fifth upland in its westward course is broken by several streams, the largest being the Chiers which, coming from the northeast, swings around an irregular course convex to the south and thus runs into and out of the upland, cutting off a 40-k. segment of its front, as shown in Fig. 28 in much simplified form. At the point of entrance, the stream is 140 m. beneath the upland crest (400 m.) ; here the fortified town of Longwy lies on the eastern point of the cut-off seg- ment and commands the approach of the Chiers valley from Abbreviations in Fig. 28 : A, Arlon; B, Briey; C, Charleville; D, Dun-sur-Meuse; E, Etain; L, Luxembourg; M, Metz; N, Stenay; O, Montm6dy; S, Sedan; T, Thion- ville; V, Verdun; Y, Longwy; Z, M6zi6rps. Frontier, dotted: Germany and Luxem- bourg in foreground, France and Belgium beyond. CONVERGE^XE OF THE UPLAND BELTS 81 '26. Upland Belts South of the Akdennes, looking west 82 PLATEAU OF LANGRES TO LORRAINE Luxembourg. The valley of the Chiers through the upland wanders irregularly ; Montmedy lies on one of the valley-side spurs in the upland not far from the river exit. The back slope of the fifth upland belt, at its turn from a northward to a westward trend, north of the Briey iron-ore district, is drained by the Crusnes, which joins the Chiers at the southernmost point of its segment-cutting curve. The northern part of the Woevre is drained northwestward by the Othain and Loison to the Chiers; like the Chiers, all three of these branch streams cut narrow, winding valleys in the back slope of the upland. Farther west, the upland, much narrower than near Metz, is obliquely trenched by the Meuse (165 m.), flowing northwest; there Stenay and Mouzon lie between the hills of the upland (350 m. on east, 330 m. on southwest) : it thus appears that the Meuse, which flows obliquely inward through the fifth up- land belt between Langres and Neufchateau, flows obliquely outward through it south of the Ardennes; the points of entrance and exit are about 180 k. apart. Evidently the northernmost part of this upland belt, reduced in width to about 10 k., has little continuity: nevertheless the form and the relative positions of its parts are best appreciated when they are recognized as belonging together although cut apart by traversing rivers. Mouzon is notable as marking the crossing place of an ancient Roman road, which holds an almost direct course over hill and dale, stUl followed for long stretches by secondary modern roads, between Rheims, 85 k. distant to the southwest, and Treves (German, Trier) on the Moselle, 110 k. distant to the east-northeast. After crossing the high crest of the fourth upland belt (336 m.), the road descends and traverses the lowland (here no longer called the Woevre) be- tween the fourth and fifth belts to Mouzon; it then passes over the fifth upland to the next lowland, where Carignan lies at the crossing THE MEUSE AND THE CHIERS 83 of the Chiers; then along the sixth upland belt and away. Mouzon and Carignan are therefore good examples of ancient river-crossing towns, the general location of which is dependent upon the inter- section of an almost direct long-continued road with the rivers on its course, though the precise sites of crossing were probably influenced by suitable points for fording, at which bridges were later built as the towns grew in size. After its exit from the fifth upland belt, the Chiers flows westward on a broad flood plain through the lowland between the dissected scarp of the fifth belt on the south and the long ixick slope of the sixth belt on the north. Similarly the Mouse, after issuing from the fifth belt and receiving the Chiers, wanders on the same wide flood plain as it flows west- ward through the lowland. Sedan of fateful memory lies six k. below the junction of the two rivers. The heights of the fifth belt (346 m.), here much narrower than farther east, rise rapidly on the south; the cleared back slopes of the scalloped sixth belt (310 m.) ascend slowly on the north. Xext west of Sedan, the Meuse makes a strong northward loop into the back slope of the sixth upland belt; farther west it makes a double loop, where the fortress of Mezieres and the city of Charleville lie near each other on the lowland (150 m.) with the river between them; then the river turns north, cuts througii the sixth upland belt (280 m.), and enters a deep and winding gorge which it follows through the Ardennes. The two upland belts weaken and disappear a little farther west. CHAPTER VII THE REGION OF THE MEUSE 36. The Fourth Upland Belt: Southern Part. The fourth upland belt has a greater length and in its middle a greater breadth than any other; it is recognizable, though imperfectly developed, along the northern border of the Central High- lands west of the broad valleys of the Loire and the AUier; while to the east of those valleys it is a well defined lineament, although cut apart by many streams, through all the 350 k, of its rounded northward course, Fig. 24, which leads it nearly to the Ardennes. Its limestones are less pure and their forms are less bold than those of the fifth belt; its cross profile as a whole is gracefully but unsymmetrically arched; its east- facing scarp is delicately scalloped and its gray frontal slopes are generally cleared; its broad upland and long descending slope are usually carved into rounded hills, many of which are too dry for repaying cultivation and are therefore largely left to tree growth. Railways follow nearly all the many cross-valleys, of which the northernmost is that of the Marne, that traverse the southern part of the fourth upland belt; hence these railways, river-like, converge and unite on their way toward the metropolis at the center of the upland arcs; but here a circumferential railway also is seen, follow- ing the inter-upland depression between the fifth and fourth belts through the southern half of its long curve, because of the impor- tance given to it by its breadth, for the crests of the fifth and fourth belts are 40 k. apart in the south. The depression between them is moderately trenched across by all the rivers that traverse it. 84 SOUTHERN PART OF THE FOURTH UPLAND BELT 85 As a result of the widening and eastward advance of the fourth upland, the two belts converge northeastward and the depression between them narrows until their crests are separated by only 14 k. where the five dose-set eastern branches of the Meuse, mentioned in section 30 as trenching the fiftli upland, unite with the main stream, which in its further northward course obliquely enters the fourth upland. Here, on the dissected back slope of the fifth belt, bordering the narrowed depression, Neufchateau (310 m.) is picturesquely situated, 20 m. above the level of the incised streams and 130 m. below the crest of the fourth upland which rises abruptly a short distance to the northwest. The features of this district are therefore typified by the trenched depression at the right end of the upper diagram, p. 47. Neufchateau is a center for a number of radiating railways and liighways. which run in pairs along the circumferential depression between the fifth and fourth upland belts southwestward to Chau- mont-en-Bassigny on the !Marne, and northeastward to Toul and Nancy; also up the Meuse, thus passing through the fifth upland bolt and joining other roads by the Alarne beneath Langres; and down the Meu.se to the main line of the Eastern railway west of Toul ; also southeastward up a branch of the Meuse on the way to Mirecourt in the sixth upland belt and bcA'ond; and a railway crosses over the fourth bolt west and nortliwest to the Ornain. 37. The Fourth rpland Belt: Northern Part. Next north of Neufchateau the fourth upland belt attains its greatest breadth of 50 k. Here the valley of the Meuse obliquely enters the main body of the upland and 110 k. farther north flows ol)li(iuely out again, thus cutting off a long segment, which is kncnvn where it.s breadth is greatest as the Cdtes de Meune. This part of the Meuse valley may therefore be likened to the chord of an arc, but it has nothing of the single- minded directness of a geometrical line: its general trend to tiie north-northwest is bent eastward to the mouth of the Val do I'Ane where the Moselle formerly flowed west, before it was diverted at the elbow of capture by Toul. .Ml along this 86 THE REGION OF THE MEUSE course the valley is gracefully serpentine, while the river has an even more elaborately sinuous course in the smooth mead- ows of the serpentine valley floor. Through all this distance the main body of the upland, west of the river, is not cut through by any stream. Indeed, from the oblique trench of the Marne, the main body of the upland is not transversely trenched for 170 k. ; but near its farther end, where the crest, declining northwestward, has altitudes of about 300 m., it is traversed by a small stream, the Bar, as will be further stated below. The main body of the upland, has, nevertheless, a varied form. Its eastern slope is deeply indented by several short east-flowing branches of the Meuse, south and north of the former junction of the upper Moselle. The broadest part of its western slope, opposite the first half of the cut-off segment, is overlapped by a subordinate upland, with a greatly dissected front nearly 100 m. in height, shown in part on the detailed map, page 94; and the back slope of this upland, elaborately carved into rounded hills by many small streams, is obliquely incised for distances of 30 k. by the Ornain, a branch of the Marne, and by the Aire, a branch of the Aisne-Oise, both flowing northwest. Transverse transportation lines must there- fore either climb over or tunnel through the northern part of the fourth upland belt. The main line of the Eastern railway — Chemin de Fer de I'Est — from Paris follows up the Marne and the Ornain to the western slope of the fourth upland belt, where Bar-le-Duc (181 m.) lies on the last named river; the railway continues for a short distance southeastward and then turns northeast- ward and crosses over the upland at an altitude of 325 m.; a broad view is gained from the treeless crest, before descent is made to the open valley of the Meuse (240 m.) ; this is fol- lowed southeastward to the Val de I'Ane, through which the railway turns east to Toul on the way to Nancy; other lines THE UNDERFIT MEUSE 87 branch up the Meuse to Neufchdteau (section 36) and down the Meuse to Verdun and beyond. A secondary line and the ]\Iarne-Rhine canal continue up the Ornain farther than the main line of the Eastern railway, following a part of the river where it flows in a minutely sinuous channel along an incised meandering valley; the rail- way continues southeastward over the upland to Neuf- chateau: the canal turns eastward, tunnels 4 k. through the upland to a small valley of the eastern slope which it follows down to the Meuse; beyond that river the canal turns, like the main railway line, through the Val de I'Ane to Toul; thence down the new course of Moselle and up the Meurthe to Xancy on its farther way, which has been described in sec- tion 25. 38. The Underfit Meuse. The uncertain, hesitating course of the Meuse through the flood-plain meadows of its meandering valley deserves further mention. It runs anywhere but around its valley curves; it is thus unlike the lower Seine, which swings vigorously around and fits closely into the large curves of its meandering val- ley through the chalk uplands of Normandy; and unlike the lower Moselle, which in similarly' well-ordered fashion fits the meanders of its narrow valley, deeply incised in the Slate-mountain highlands on the way to thf Rhine. The elaborately sinuous Meuse may there- fore be described as " underfit," in the sense of being incompetent to follow its vallej' curves; it thus illustrates a curious habit, widely prevalent among the smaller rivers of northern France, such as the \'6zou.se, the ujjper Meurthe, the Cliiers, and the Ornain, above mentioned, and the Aisne, the Oise, and the Somme, to be described below. It has been suggested that the underfit habit of these rivers is due to loss (;f river volume by slow uiiderllow in the deej} alluvium — • gravels, .sands, and silts — of the valley floor; thus it is implied that at an earlier stage of development, before the alluvium of the flood i)Iain was deiKisited, the visible river carried the total drainage of its bu.sin in its channel, and was for a time large and vigorous 88 THE REGION OF THE MEUSE enough to cut out the curves of a freely meandering valley, into which it then necessarily fitted because they were its own product; but later, as alluvium began to accumulate on the rock-bed of the valley, the visible volume, flowing in the surface channel, was de- creased by the amount of creeping underflow in the alluvium; the deeper the alluvium became the more the visible river flow was thus diminished, until at the present stage of its development it is re- duced to so small a current that it is altogether incompetent to swing around the valley curves, which it had itself previously carved, as is clearly shown on the detailed maps, pp. 90 and 95. The Meuse may therefore be taken as the type of an underfit river; its course is so much more serpentine than that of the valley that it sometimes, as at points near St. Mihiel and Verdun on the detailed maps above noted, flows almost backwards towards its source, as if, with loss of volume, it had also lost the sense of direc- tion and knew not where to turn ! The practical application of this explanation is that serpentine valley floors, on which "underfit" rivers wander irregularly, may be expected to have a deep alluvial deposit burying their rock bottom. 39. St. Mihiel and Verdun. The upland segment which, cut off from the main body of the fourth upland belt by the Meuse valley, forms the Cotes de Meuse, is breached at the first quarter of its 100 k. length by the winding Val de I'Ane, already described as connecting the elbow of the Moselle with the valley of the Meuse, and as marking the former path of one river to its confluence with the other: this dry valley today serves as a gap for highway, canal, and railway as above noted; the first crosses over one of its valley-side spurs under which the other two pass in tunnels. A little farther north the northeast-flowing Rupt de Mad, one of the branches of the Moselle, briefly mentioned in sec- tion 32 as trenching the fifth upland belt, has pushed its head so far westward across the Woevre lowland by retrogressive erosion as to excavate a bight or concave reentrant in the A THE COTES DE MEUSE AND THE WOEVRE 89 scarp of the Cotes de ]Meuse, and thus reduce them to their least width of three k., as shown in the lower part of the map, pp. 90, 91. Just here, moreover, two small west-flowing l)ranches of the Mcuse have cut their valleys almost through the narrowed Cotes. Hence it was here that the German forces early advanced westward from the fortress of Metz across the fifth upland belt and the Woevre lowland, and reached the Meuse in a salient between the fortresses of Toul on the southeast and of \'erdun on the north; the apex of the salient is a little north of the narrowest part of the upland segment at mid- length of the Meuse valley-chord, and is marked by the town of St. Mihiel: there on a west-reaching spur that enters the second turn of an S-like pair of valley curves, a French strong- hold had been built upon the site of an ancient Roman camp, but unfortunately on the east side of the river; the Germans captured the stronghold and cut the railroad in the valley beneath. Thus defended on three sides by the natural val- ley-moat, they have held possession against all French attacks. Their object was plainly enough not merely the occupation of this point, of relatively small value in itself, but the isolation of \'erdun, farther north in the Meuse valley, of which more is told below. North of the Rupt de Mad bight, the segment of the Cotes de Meuse (380 in.), partly forested, partly cleared, is higli and continu- ous in the .sen.se of not being cut through l)v any transverse valley, l)Ut it is carved into many rounded hills separated by deep ravines. 'i"he ea-st-faeing scarp <>( the segment is not .so sharp crested as that of the fifth upland belt; nevertheless, it is a striking topographic feature. The view eastward from its promontories inchides th(> whole breadth (jf the \Vo('vre with patches of shining ponds, and the long western slr^fK- of the fifth upland. As is often the ca.se elsewhere, so here the level of emerging springs on the lower slope of the scarj) 90 THE REGION OF THE MEUSE Fia. 29. The Meandering Valley of the Meus] THE MEUSE AT ST. MIHIEL 91 } JUil.JJL . T— T- -'v I, .,,|.,tt<.';l ■.-; ■■■•Ji.-i-,;. ,i Xivri! ir^'ii.i^ ;»«i»J ^y I jo^illc >'/^ j..ru-.r^ i> Tut i-oLiUTu Upland Bllt, nkab St. MiuitL 92 THE REGION OF THE MEUSE determines the site of a series of ancient villages which have been there from time immemorial; the villagers are in large measure de- scended from a long line of local forefathers; their number changes slowly. Many of the villages have sous-les-Cotes appended to their name. In proud contrast to the humbler position of these lowly villages, Hattonchatel (-castle) occupies a commanding promontory of the segment crest, and recalls an era of barons lording it over peasants. The main western body of the upland belt hereabouts, west of the Meuse, is still a broad and hilly upland (320 m.), in spite of the loss of its higher frontal segment. The relief is so strong on both sides of the river that the upland villages often have names ending in -niont, as Haumont, Louvemont; some of those in the ravines have names ending in -court, as if to indicate their narrow enclosure by the hills, as Chattancourt, Avocourt, Landrecourt. The meandering habit of the Meuse valley through the hills results in systematic differences of length in the several lines of transporta- tion that follow it; the main highway makes short cuts over the valley-side spurs, and is, as usual in such valleys, the shortest line; the railway along one side of the flood plain, and the canal often along the other side, follow the valley curves; the river, twisting about on the flood plain, and occasionally even turning backward,is much the longest line of the four. Here in the chord-valley lies Verdun (204 m.), the fortified center of a ring of fortified hills. The railway that follows the winding valley of the Meuse is here crossed by an east-west line that rises and falls over uplands and lowlands; to the west it leads over the main body of the fourth upland and over the third and second uplands to Rheims; to the east, it passes over the detached segment of the fourth upland, across the Woevre lowland, and then dividing, runs through the fifth upland by two of its narrow transverse valleys. VERDUN 93 Unfortunately all these railway lines have been controlled by the Germans since shortly after the beginning of the war. Although thus cut off from supplies by rail, Verdun has suc- cessfully resisted all assaults. Farther down stream, the valley and the hills on both sides of it, as well as most of the Woevre lowland on the east, were early occupied by the Ger- mans; but it has been impossible for them to make success- ful attack upon Verdun from the lowland, b}' reason of the natural defense offered by the strong scarp of the cuesta segment; the effort of the Germans to ascend a ravine in the scarp face, known by the name of the village, Vaud, at* its mouth, cost them the sacrifice of thousands of lives. It is therefore from the north, where hills about as high as those crowned by the forts around Verdun are occupied by the enemy, that the strongest attacks have been made; but these attacks have been impeded by the deep side- valleys which divide the hills. Some of the hills have become notorious in the course of repeated attacks and repulses: Cote dc Froide Terre (345 m.) is 4 k. north of Verdun; Douaumont (388 m.), a violently contested point, rises 9 k. to the northeast; Ic Mort Homme (295 m.) is 12 k. northwest of the city; near by on the west an advancing spur of the subordinate overlapping upland is known from its height as " Hill 304." The digging of trenches arul the blasting of "craters " by innumerable shells has in- flicted a long-lasting injury on the fields of the uplands, not only by making them uneven, but even more b}' mixing the surface soil with a great volume of unweathered rock frag- ments. The surface; can be graded smooth again in a few years of peace, but it will recjuire scores of years to restore its lost sf)ils. 94 THE REGION OF THE MEUSE frnw' t I \ /"^ 5 ^ V^ - i|- "r ■*n Hoart ©I Ms- Hi d Cti»ttixn HIT I ^r^r X.'^, i'iiMoa/^ Ki-y-i.^w* <'<*^«J ^^;f''^'"?,v^*^ %^tfv' i^l' /If-' Vl>i.lV» 4'<^ k^ttau^Mib Fig. 30. The Meuse at Verdu] THE MEUSE AT VERDUN 95 Tu'':iu'V(i;r .: "rr. — JV„-r..t,j f y ^ R.-^ htit'iJuihtiiii- '.'{' > :;-.lC7'^=- i*i.i.i '>^>^ '^ - |i'\ I l > ■• ■" • ■■' //■/. *■^•. 96 THE REGION OF THE MEUSE It is evidently because of the separation of Verdun by the main body of the fourth cuesta from the more open country farther west, that it has played so individual a part in the war. It withstood the first assault of the Germans in August, 1914; since their retreat from the Marne in September of that year, the attacks upon Verdun, especially the long-continued assaults of 1916, have been essentially independent of the campaign farther west. The defense of the fortress has been made doubly difficult since the Germans took St. Mihiel, as noted above, and thus prevented the bringing of sup- plies by rail along the valley floor from the south. To overcome this deprivation, thousands of motor trucks, running on schedule time, have been used to bring munitions over the upland from Bar-le- Duc on the Ornain, by a hilly road that crosses the incised valley of the upper Aire on the way. The dislodgment of the Germans from St. Mihiel and the reestablishment of railway communication along the Meuse valley would therefore greatly strengthen Verdun. It is worth noting that by a treaty made at Verdun in the year 843 the vast empire of Charlemagne was divided among his succes- sors; thus for the first time did the region which we know as Ger- many have a ruler of its own; the beginning of German national life may be placed at this date. It is not improbable that the frantic efforts made by the Germans to capture Verdun have been prompted by pride awakened by this historical reminiscence: but the French have said, " They shall not pass." 40. The Fourth Upland Belt: Northernmost Part. About 30 k. beyond Verdun the underfit Meuse leaves its winding valley in the fourth upland belt and flows out upon the north- western extension of the frontal lowland, leaving the upland intact on the southwest. The lowland is here less than 10 k. in width and no longer bears the name of Woevre. Dun- sur-Meuse lies on the river at the exit from the upland, and Stenay is beyond the lowland some 12 k. farther on. The upland trends northwest, and rapidly losing breadth is cut through obliquely by the Bar, 30 k. northwest of the exit of the Meuse (see diagram, p. 81); it continues about as THE UNDERFIT BAR 97 much farther (see map, p. 153), narrowing as it is crowded between the converging fifth and third uplands on either side, and then disappears under the overlapping chalk upland, as will be described in section 46. The ancient village of Stonne stands on the upland summit next east of the Bar valley, where the Roman road from Rheinis to Treves holds its undeviating way over the upland belt. The Bar is a remarkable example of an underfit stream; its minutely sinuous course is about twice as long as the larger curves of its serp)entine valley. Its minute sinuosity is doubtless due to diminution of volume, for which two reasons may be given: the Aire once continued its flow northward to the Bar before it was captured by a branch of the Aisne, as is further stated on p. 100; then the l)eheaded Bar, no longer able to transport all the detritus brought from the adjoining uplands by the side streams, laid down some of it on the valley floor, which was thereby built uj) or aggraded by a considerable thickness of alluvial deposits; and a further loss of surface volume was caused by underflow therein, as explained in section 3S. CHAPTER VIII ARGONNE AND CHAMPAGNE 41. The Third Upland Belt: its Southern Lowland Substitute. The third upland belt is peculiar in being well developed only in the northern part of its arc ; farther south the determining strata of this upland are thin or absent, and its place is taken by low rambling hills (180 m.) bearing large forests, or by a lowland (140 m.), 20 k. in width, between the long back slope of the fourth upland belt and the low front of the second, as shown in Fig. 32. The main branches of the Seine system cross the lowland in open flood plains. Indeed, in the space be- tween the Marne and the northward bow of its chief branch, the Ornain, several smaller streams, gradually converging westward, aid in transforming almost all that part of the lowland, over a north-south stretch of 20 k., into contiguous plains, on which the streams wander with little restraint. The larger towns and cities of this district avoid the lowland and occupy the main-stream valleys to the southeast or northwest. Thus Bar-sur-Seine, Bar-sur-Aube, St. Dizier on the Marne, and Bar-le- Duc on the Ornain are at the edge of or within the back slope of the fourth upland belt; while Troyes on the Seine and Vitry-le-Frangois on the Marne, regarding both of which more is said below, occupy reentrants in the low front of the second upland belt. Numerous roads and railways traverse the lowland in various directions; the most important railway is the main Eastern line, which crosses from Vitry-le-Frangois along the Ornain to Bar-le-Duc. 42. The Forest of Argonne. To the north of the Ornain, a number of large ponds are held among the lowland hills, as is 98 THE FOREST OF ARGONNE 99 also the case farther south between the Marne and the Aube. The hills then increase in height and soon begin to assume a cuesta-like form; it is not, however, until 20 k. beyond the Ornain that the third upland belt, maintained by beds of argil- laceous sandstone, gains a well developed rehef with a width of 15 k. between the Aire on the east and the Aisne on the west, both of which flow north-northwest in exceptionally well directed longitudinal courses. The upland begins rather abruptly, thus presenting a descent to the south; thereafter it has normal form, with a fairly strong slope falling off to the east, and a longer slope descending to the west; it thus con- tinues for 75 k. to the north-northwest, with stony, infertile Fig. 31. Section across the Forest of Argonne soil; much of its length is covered by the great forest of Argonne. The district of Argonne extends eastward and includes part of the back slope of the fourth upland. A characteristic profile across the southern part of this forested upland may be begun in the lowland (240 m.) on the east. Beneath it, the Aire has incised a meandering valley of small depth, near which Clermont-en-Argonne and in which Varenncs-en-Argonne are the chief towns; the upland crest ri.ses to a height of 308 m., whence a long westward descent (200-170 m.) loads to the next lowland (150 m.), before reaching which, however, one must cross the longitudinal valley of the Bicsme which splits the upland for some 20 k., and the meandering valley of Ihe Aisne (140 m.); the latter is an underfit river in a meandering valley near the base of the slope. Ste. Menehould is the chief town in this part of 100 ARGONNE AND CHAMPAGNE the Aisne valley. A transverse railway, coming from Rheims, passes Ste. Menehould, crosses the split upland to Clermont- en-Argonne, and then traverses the main mass of the fifth upland belt to Verdun. At mid-length of the forested belt, the upland is cut square across by the valley of the Aire, which there leaves the longitudinal lowland east of the cuesta and turns to a trans- verse course; Grand Pre lies close to the elbow where the turn is made. The following part of the lowland is drained northward by the Bar, an extremely underfit stream, the lower course of which follows, as above noted, a meandering valley of large pattern through the fourth and fifth upland belts. It has been supposed with good reason that the underfit Bar, flow- ing in a relatively high-level valley (160 m.), represents the dimin- ished or " beheaded " lower course of the former high-level Aire (180-200 m.) when it continued northward to the Meuse, before its diversion to the Aisne in the lower western lowland (120 m.) ; hence the bend of the Aire at Grand Pre may be regarded as an elbow of capture, like that of the Moselle at Toul; and the incision of the Aire valley (140 m.) may be explained as a consequence of the trans- fer of its allegiance from the higher levels of the Meuse system to the lower levels of the Aisne-Oise-Seine system; but the valley of the little Aire at the Grand-Pr6 elbow of capture is much wider than that of the larger Moselle at Toul; hence the capture of the Aire by a branch of the Aisne should be regarded as more ancient than that of the upper Moselle by a branch of the aboriginal Meurthe. It is worth noting that the Aisne below the point where the Aire has been added to its volume, and where it therefore might expect- ably show the vigorous habit of an " overfit " river, more competent than ever to flow vigorously around its valle}'- curves, is nevertheless strikingly underfit; hence loss of volume by percolation in flood- plain alluvium, as above suggested, is a plausible explanation of its now enfeebled behavior. Vouzier (100 m.) lies in the Aisne valley below the confluence of the Aire. Not far beyond that town and 23 k. below the confluence DIVERSION OF THE AIRE TO THE AISNE 101 of the Aire, the Aisne turns westward; its further course will be described in a later section. Opposite this turn, the third upland belt, here trending northwest, is almost cut through by a small branch streflm, the cross valley of which is ascended bj' a canal which connects the Seine-Oise-Aisne river system with that of the Meuse; the canal makes a short-cut path through a spur-stem of the Bar valley near its junction with the Meuse. A modern lane follows the ancient Roman road, above described as connecting Rheims and Treves, over the hills of the third upland belt (240 m.) next south of the cross valley just mentioned. Beyond the cross valley, the lowland in front of the upland narrows and disappears, presumably because its determining weak strata give out; the third upland thereupon almost merges with the fourth, as already stated. 43. The Second Upland Belt, Southern Part: The Forest of Othe. The second upland belt, formed of chalk strata, is a low and much scalloped bench (190 m.) rising gently with gracefully curved profile from the northwestern side of the broad lowland (140 m.) that south of the Marne replaces the third upland belt; but southwest of the Seine the bench is dwarfed b\' a higher upland of cuesta form (280 m.), covered l)y the forest of Othe, which rises with a strong frontal slope, deeply scored by steep ravines, a few kilometers further north- west. This high upland is maintained by a body of sandstone strata, which singularly enough tlo not extend northeast of the Seine, and which lose topographic value southwestward of the Yonne; but between these limiting rivers the upland that they form is a dominating feature. 44. The Second Upland Hdi and the Uhampagnc. North of the Forest of Othe the second or chalk upland, as it may be called, although of well defined form, is so low that it does iKjt strongly separate the l>roa(l lowlands on its two sities. A large part of this extensive region of small relief, including most of the broad lowland where the third upland is wanting, 102 ARGONNE AND CHAMPAGNE Charleville Wo ;;;'■■: '<6i:'Ml||^'6!WltEs,.„ — Mezieres/ ^ ^" ' M I ("f" Sedan 1 1 1 1 Fig. 32. The First, Second, and Third Upland Belts THE CHAMPAGNE 103 the low second upland, which bears many small patches of woodland, as far as the Aisne, and a long stretch of the follow- ing lowland of sandy and clayey strata which fronts the strong scarp of the first upland belt, is known as la Champagne, or " the open country." Of this area, the broad eastern lowland as far north as the Forest of Argonne (third upland belt), and the narrower northward extension of this lowland between the Forest of Argonne and the chalk upland, are characterized by many streams, and by moist, deep-soiled fields and numerous villages; these parts are therefore united under the name la Champagne humide, or the moist Champagne. The western part, including the low chalk upland and the following low- land of few streams and dry soils, where villages and culti- vated fields are limited^ to the wide-spaced valleys, has received the unflattering name of la Champagne pouilleuse, which may be called the dry Champagne: it is this drier western area that is now to be especially considered; and to it, rather than to the moister eastern area, the name Cham- pagne usually applies. The southwest€rnmost extension of the dry Champagne lies in the lowland between the long back slope of the Forest of Othe and the strong scarp of the first upland belt, where the Seine, ha^^ng re- ceived the Aube, flows GO k. wost-southwest and receives the Yonne Ix-ff^re resuming its northwest course and passing through the first upland to Paris. PVom this beginning the belt of low or moderate relief, \\adening by the addition of the low chalk upland belt north of the Seine, sweeps around an arc of more than 90° and over a distance of 2.j0 k., from the Yonne on a southeastern radius of the Paris basin to beyond the Aisne, which limits the Champagne district, and as far a-s the Oise on a north-northeastern radius; the undulating low- lanfl surface eontiiiues west of the Oise into northernmost France, as will he deseribed in section 52. This licit of open counlr}', inchid- ing the low chalk upland on the east along with the lower lowland of 104 ARGONNE AND CHAMPAGNE sands and clays to which the chalk upland gently declines on the west, is much more extensive than any other physiographic area of north- eastern France. For convenience of description it may be divided into sectors by the transverse rivers; the sector beyond the Oise will be treated on later pages. 45. The Dry Champagne from the Seine to the Aisne. The Seine flows through the second or chalk upland belt next north of the Forest of Othe in a broad and squarely transverse valley, on the floor of which lies Troyes (55,486), the largest city between Paris and Dijon. It is from the extensive deal- ings in the ancient fairs of this commercial city that English- speaking people have acquired the so-called Troy weight, in which 12 ounces make a pound. Beyond the open breach of the Seine, the chalk upland continues its generally treeless surface for 160 k.; yet low as it. is only three rivers, the Aube, the Marne, and the Aisne, traverse it in all this distance. At the entrance to the obliquely transverse valley of the Marne lies Vitry-le-Frangois, one of the most southern points reached by the German army in its first advance. The low- land of the moist Champagne (140-150 m.) to the east of the chalk upland, unusually broad through the long 100 k. stretch where the third upland belt is wanting, is much nar- rowed, as above noted, after the rise of that upland in the Forest of Argonne farther north; the narrowed part of the lowland is, singularly enough, not followed by a longitudinal stream, for it is in the back slope of the third upland adjoining on the east that the underfit Aisne pursues the incised mean- dering valley described in section 42. The frontal scarp of the chalk upland is elaborately carved by the close-set ravines of many short, east-flowing streams, the branches of which head two or three k. back in the upland; its generally treeless spurs are unlike those of any other up- THE SCARP OF THE CHALK UPLAND 105 land belt in the series from the Vosges to Paris. Villages lie in the ravine mouths or beneath the spur ends, where a water supply is obtainable; but they are more abundant on the better watered and well cultivated lowland farther east, in its Fig. 33. The Ragged Scarp of the Low Chalk Upland narrowed northern extension parallel to the Aisne, as well as farther south where it is broad. The chalk strata that consti- tute the second ujjland belt (200 m.) are so i)ervious to water that the thin soil over the flat upland crest is unusually dry; hence villages here are few and far between: even the valley heads of the back slope arc waterless. Not until the slope declines some 40 or oO m., on the western side of the faintly 106 ARGONNE AND CHAMPAGNE convex upland crest, do the shallow valleys bear streams; and not until after the streams begm are villages found also. The roads of the upland are surfaced with flints. Thus to the easily recognized flint-bearing chalk of its maintaining strata and to its well individualized though low relief, the second upland belt adds the characteristic of a thin-soiled, dry, almost uninhabited upland, the driest part of la Cham- pagne pouilleuse, between the moist and fertile lowland on the east and the broader but less fertile lowland, partly occupied by pine forests, on the west. North of the Aube, which curves to the west to join the Seine, the broad and gently undulating surface of the dry Champagne continues with a width of 40 or 50 k. for some 60 or 70 k. before it is obliquely crossed by the shallow valley of the Marne, from the marshy flood plain of which much peat has been dug out. Chalons-sur-Marne, an important military station, lies on the right side of the valley, where the eastward rise from the lowland to the back slope of the second upland belt may be said to begin. Epernay lies on the left side of the Marne in a reentrant opened by that river in the front of the first upland belt. Through this part of the Champagne in particular, the faintness of the relief is shown by the long distances over which highways and railways run in straight courses. Then follows a northward stretch of some 60 k. where, between the Marne and the Aisne, several small streams rise in shallow valleys among the woodland patches on the gentle back slope of the chalk upland and cross the lowland northwestward to the Aisne. Here the battle front has lain for three years, trending from the southern part of the Forest of Argonne west-northwest to the Aisne where it enters the first upland belt. The district has been the scene of severe fight- ing, with moderate northward gains for the French. The shallow THE HILLS EAST OF RHEIMS 107 vallej-s of the Vesle and the Suippe in the roUing surface are of less strategic value than several residual hills in the center of the area between these streams, on which the Germans entrenched their forces after retreating from the Marne. The hills are composed of strata overlying the chalk; the highest of them (267 m.), eight k. east of Rheims, may be named from the ^^llage of Berru on its eastern slope. Twelve k. farther on otlicr hills (257 m.) rise west of the \-illage of Moronvilliers. Their possession has been desperately contested. Tunnels driven through the hills gave the Germans pro- tection in passing from their camps on the sheltered northern slope to the trenches on tlie exposed southern slope. When the hills were captured in the spring of 1917 by the French, after heav}- artillery firing by which the tunnel mouths were broken down and obstructed, hundreds of German soldiers were found suffocated in the tunnels. The location of the hills is shown in the diagram on pages 112, 113. In the western part of this division of the Champagne north of the Marne and beyond a strong eastward salient of the first upland belt, lies the famous cathedral city of Rheims (French, Reims; the final s is pronounced) on the the Vesle, a small branch of the Aisne. Since the retreat from the JMarne, the German line has been held not far northeast of the city, which has thus been exposed to intermittent bombardment for over three years. The ancient origin of this city is attested by the number of Roman roads that radiate from it: one of them, already mentioned as leading to Treves, crosses the plain northeastward in a remarkablj' direct course. 46. The Lowlands from the Aisne to the Oise. The Aisne, turning west from its longitudinal course in the back slope of ihe third upland belt, crosses the next narrow lowland, the low ciialk upland - Kethel lies here in the transverse valley — and the lowland plain beyond, and then enters the plateau wliieh constitutes the northern extension of the first up- land, as will be explained below. In its course west of the (•halk-U[)land crest, the river flows in a very sinuous charniel through a wide and often marshy flood plain. To the north of 108 ARGONN]^ AND CHAMPAGNE the Aisne (see maps, pp. 102 and 153) the remaining portion of the undulating southwestward slope from the second or chalk upland to the adjoining lowland forms the northernmost sec- tor of the broad belt of small relief that began at the Seine. The belt here extends beyond the limits of the Champagne district and reaches the Oise. The drainage of the area is accomplished by the west-flowing Souche, Hurtaut, Brune, and Villepion, all small streams that unite in the Serre and thus reach the Oise, which in this upper part of its course has, like the Aisne above mentioned, a winding channel in a marshy flood plain. The southwestern and lower part of this northernmost sector, near the group of plateau segments that here represent the first upland belt, the smallest and northernmost member of which is crowned by Laon, is so low and flat that it is drained by artificial canals. The northeastern part of the sector, rising gradually with the northward ascent of the chalk formation, has deeper valleys and therefore a stronger relief than the corresponding area in the Champagne; its many broadly rounded upland hills rise among a labyrinth of val- leys, with neither height nor depth enough to make movement diffi- cult in time of peace, yet with such variety of form as to give in- war much advantage to well chosen lines of defence and to impose cor- responding disadvantage on the lines of attack. The northward extension of the undulating uplands is peculiar. For a short distance north of the Aisne, they fall off eastward, as heretofore, in a scarp of moderate height which descends to the nar- row lowland already described, and beyond the lowland a moderate ascent leads up the back slope of the weakening third upland; but farther north the scarp disappears and the chalk upland successively overlaps the lowered ends of the third, the fourth, and the fifth upland belts (see map, p. 153), and farther west it wraps around the westward slope of the Ardennes into Belgium. Thus the strong rampart-like scarps of the several upland belts, which farther south- east faced the Lorraine plateau, fade away in this northern district; hence here, after the repulse of the allied forces in northern France LOWL.\NDS FROM THE AISXE TO THE OISE 109 in August, 1914, the German army, hurrying through the Ardennes highlands by the gorge of the Meuse and passing around the low western descent of the highlands by Charleroi and Mons in Belgium, had a wide district of moderate relief before them, across which they advanced rapidly far southward into the Champagne, and for a less distance over the high ground of the first upland belt, to which we now turn. CHAPTER IX THE FIRST UPLAND BELT 47. The Scarp of the Upland facing the Champagne Lowland. The member of the series of upland belts nearest Paris is main- tained by beds of impure limestone overlying the weaker sands and clays, which are worn down in the lowland of the Champagne on the east. Through the middle of its arc the upland has a strongly developed east-facing scarp, 150 m. or more in height, a rather broad upland (240-280 m.), and a long westward slope toward Paris. Its beginning may be said to be in the uplands of the Forest of Fontainebleau, not far southwest of the transverse valley of the Seine. The up- land gains stronger relief to the northeast of this valley, where it is known as la Brie, as far as the deeper and more mean- dering valley of the Marne, in the open entrance to which lies Epernay, with Chateau-Thierry in its narrowed middle part, and Meaux near its exit to the lower ground near Paris. The main line of the Eastern railway follows this valley. The lowland on the west has been described in chapter III. The upland of la Brie is cut through about two-thirds of the way from the Seine to the Marne by the Petit Morin, the source of which lies in an extensive marsh, le Marais de St. Gond, on the lowland next east of the upland scarp. Several streams, of which the largest is the Grand Morin, a short distance south of its more deeply incised little brother, rise on the upland and cut valleys in its back slope. Beneath a notch in the scarp at the head of the Grand Morin lies no ESCARPMENT WEST OF THE CHAIMPAGNE 111 Sezanne on the adjoining lowland; a secondary line of the Eai^tern railway ascends the Grand ]\Iorin vallej' and passes through the notch to the lowland. It was on the slanting upland just north of the Petit ]\Iorin valley, that Napoleon, shortly before his exile to Elba in 1814, defeated the Prussians in three battles at Montmerail, Champaubert, and Eloges on three successive days. The escarpment of the Brie upland is known as the Falaise (sea clifiF) dc rile de France (lie de France being the name of an ancient province, centering in Paris), thus recalling the obsolete view that cliffs of this kind were, like the cliffs of Normand}-, the work of sea waves, as was thought before an understanding was reached of their origin by the differential weathering of strong and weak strata. The fact is simply that the underlying weak strata, worn down on the east to lowland forms, slowh- sap and force back the scarp of the harder overlying strata ; while the overlying strata, resisting with all their strength the enforced retreat, stand forth in scarped promontories and spurs. AH the sunHt slopes of the scarp and the northern side of the Marne vallej' are occupied bV vineyards from which the famous tin de Champagne is produced; it is stored in great cellars excavated in the weaker sandy strata near the scarp base. The fine.st promontory of the upland scarp is the already mentioned strong salient, the Moiilagne de Reims, next north of the Marne; its eastward-rising extremity (280 m.) is naturally the highest point in the whole length of the scarp; its forested back slope is drained northwestward b}' a little stream, the Ardre, to the \'esle, a tributarj' of the Aisne. The promont(M-y is tunneled by the railwa}' from Epernay to liiicims. The .segment of the upland front, almost detached by the valley of the Ardre, has an irregular margin, thus fore- shadowing the still more irregular margins of the segments north of the Vesle and the Aisne. 112 ARGONNE AND CHAMPAGNE Fig. 34. The Courses of the Marne and the Aisne across Explanation of abbreviations: A, Ch&lons-sur-Marne; B, Bar-le-Duc; C, Com- pidgne; E, Epcrnay; F, La F6re; H, Chateau-Thierry; L, Laon; M, Ste. Menehould; UPL-\XD BELTS ADJOINING CHAMPAGNE 113 THE Champagne and thkolgh the Uplandh NouTitEAST oi- Pauis S. Noyon; O. F*re Champc'iioisf ; It. Rhpima; 8, SoiiJBoiiB; T, Kcthcl; V. Verdun; X, Meaux; Y, Vitry-le-Francoi«; Z, S6ianne. 114 THE FIRST UPLAND BELT Not far north of the Marne valley the back slope of the upland changes from a western to a southern slant; here it is drained by the Ourcq, which joins the Marne above Meaux. Farther west, the upland, known as Valois and already de- scribed in section 17, is limited by the valley of the Oise, as will be further told in section 52. 48. The Battle of the Marne. When the German army made its great advance from the north of France in August, 1914, the farthest progress was over the uplands of Valois and Brie, where the front finally stretched from Meaux on the Marne southeastward along the southern side of the Grand Morin valley, and across the open lowland of the Champagne on the line from Fere Champenoise to Vitry-le-Frangois. Three valleys in the upland — those of the Marne, the Petit Morin, and the Grand Morin — which had impeded the southward progress of the Germans, now hampered the bringing of sup- plies from their rear, and might become dangerous obstacles in a forced retreat. It was when this condition was reached that the French under Joffre made their famous stand in the Battle of the Marne and began to press the Germans back. But in the forced retirement which followed, the same upland valleys that had impeded the advance of the Germans delayed the advance of the pursuers; and the attempt made by French forces, advancing from Paris, to push eastward north of the Marne and fall upon the German flank was delayed at the valley of the Ourcq. The retreat over the uplands left the invaders in an untenable position on the Champagne, and a concentrated attack by the French beyond the impassable marsh of St. Gond, which served as a natural barrier for a moderate distance forward from the upland scarp, compelled THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE 115 the Gemian army on tho plain to withdraw from its hazardous isolation. The northern side of the Marne valley would have been a favorable line for the Germans to hold, had there been time to assemble their forces upon it, but the pursuit was so ardent that this proved impossible; and moreover the right flank was there exposed to attack on the uplands of Valois. The retreat was therefore not arrested until the valley of the Aisne, in the uplands farther north, and the hills on the Cham- pagne east of Rheims were reached. The positions there taken were well chosen, if one may judge by the long subse- quent period during which they were held with small change. 49. The Tablelands north of the Aisne. The northern part of the first upland belt is cut through by the east-west valley of the Aisne, midway in which Soissons is situated. The cuesta- likc upland here undergoes the change of form that such fea- tures suffer, as illustrated on page 48, when the dip of the determining strata decreases and Ijecomes almost horizontal. The upland belt or cuesta, with a scarp on one side and a long slope on the other, thus becomes a plateau, with a flat upland surface and .scarps on all sides, as shown in the bird's-eye diagram, pp. 116, 117. The change is foreshadowed in the plateau-like segment (200 m., see Fig. 34) of the gently slant- ing upland included, with scarped and indented margins on all sides, between the Vesle and the Aisne, northwest of Rheims; and also farther west, on the south side of the Aisne valley in the neighborhood of Soissons, where the uplan