The Sentinel=record., 1915-04-04
ATTACKS DAILY
 FOR THREE WEEKS
ALLIES KEEP UP A CONSTANT PRESSURE ON THE GERMAN
 FORCES ALONG RHEIMS.
Lack of Roads Handcaps the Work, but the Trains of Wagons Move Across Plains as Best They Can.

London, March 3.-A British ob- server with the French forces in the field. who has the permission of Gen oraI Joftre 10 report on the work of the French army has sent in 10 the ofHc.a. press bureau an account coY- ern1 thc three weeks since Febru- ary L.. in Champagne. In the dis. trict midway between Rheims aud Ncrjun, on a fighting front of some live miles. he says the French have been attacking one point or another every day for three weeks
 "It is a sustained operation, Of a different kind 10 those which we have seen during the winter months he says "Those we're local efforts, lasting a day or two; desiened to keep The enemy busy, and prevent aim from withdrawing troops else where. this is sustained effort made with the object of keeping
 constant pressure on his first line Of defence. Of affecting his use of the railway from Bazancourt to Chale- range. a few miles to the north and of wearing down his reserves of men and ammunition It may be said that the 18th of February makes the opening of the 1915 campaign, and that this first phase will find an im- portant place when the history of the war comes to be written.
 "Tbe nature of the country is en- trcly different to that in which the British army is fighting. It is one vast plain, undulating, the hills at most 200 feet higher than the valleys. gentle slopes everywhere. The soil is chalky The only features are the pine woods. which have been planted by hundreds. As each rise is topped, a new stretch of plain, a now set Of small woods appear, just like that which has been left behind. The viE lsges are few and small, most Of them are in ruins after the fighting in Ser tember; and tho troops live almost entirely in colonies 0f little hnta of wood or straw, about four feet high dotted about in the woods, in the val leys. wherever little water and slcl. ter is obtainable
 Lack of villages means lack of roads; this has been one of the great difficulties 10 be faced; but at the same time, the movement of wagons across country is possible to a far greater extent than in Flanders, al- though t is often necessary tO use eight or ten horses to get a gun or
 d the military point of view the coun- try is eminenly suitable for troops, with its possibilities of concealment of producing sudden surprises with cavalry, and of maneuvering geuor- ally. IL is. in fact, the training ground of the great military center of the Chalons; and French troops have doubtless been exercised over this ground in every branch of mili- tary operation, except that in which they are engaged at the present mo- ment
 "What commander. training his men over this ground, could have imagined that the area from Perthes- lezIIurlus to Beaseiour farm would become two fortress lines, develop ed and improved for four months; or Chat he would have to carry out an attack modelled on the same system as that employed in the last great siege undertaken by French troops, that of Sebastopol in 1855? Yet this is what is being done. Every day an attack is made on a trench, on the edge of one Of the little woods, or to gain ground in one of them; every day the ground gained has to be transferred 70 as 10 give protection to it's new occupants and means of ac- cess to their supports every night. and on many days. the cnemy's coun- ter attacks have to be ropulsed. Each attack has to be prepared by a violent and accurate artillery fire it