It was on the Crise, in the latter part
of May, that a handful of Frenchmen held up the German avalanche from
the Chemin-des-Dames.
[Sidenote: German guns have revenge.]
[Sidenote: Allies enter Soissons.]
The Germans paid us back in July. Sheltered in the ravines and windings
of the valley, their artillery, being almost invisible, had nothing to
disturb its aim. The villages, the orchards, the grottoes, crammed with
machine-guns, were so many fortresses; the whole valley was a veritable
hell. There were incessant counter-attacks, which the Allies, on the
bare plateau, entirely devoid of cover, could repel only with the
greatest difficulty. They pushed forward step by step, and by fits and
starts. On the 19th our troops were hard put to it to hold the ground
they had taken the day before; on the 20th they barely began to nibble
at the ravines, at Ploisy and L'Echelle. On the 21st the Americans took
Berzy-le-Sec, and the French were astride the lower waters of the Crise;
on the 23d they went down into the ravine of Buzancy. But not until the
25th did they gain possession of the promontory of Villemontoire; and
only on the 29th did a Scottish division, after three days of forward
fighting, carry Buzancy. This last success, to be sure, was decisive,
for it uncovered the upper valley of the Crise. And so, on August 2, the
enemy gave way; that day the Allies crossed the valley along its entire
length, and advanced across the eastern side of the plateau as far as
the Vesle.
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