both ends with ferro-concrete walls four feet thick. The tunnel lay from ten to fifty meters under ground. Access to the fighting lines was had through passages and galleries cut from the tunnel to the trenches." 4

In front of the Hindenburg Line were three outpost positions known as the Knoll, Guillemont Farm and Quennemont Farm. Against these outposts men of the 27th Division (106th Regiment) advanced in the face of machine gun fire on the morning of September 27. The fighting was desperate. The Knoll changed hands four times, but when night came Guillemont Farm and Quennemont Farm, and all but a small part of the Knoll were in our hands. On the 29th the attack on the Hindenburg Line was made. Preceded by twenty-six of the heaviest British tanks, two regiments, the 107th and the 108th, went forward; but within two hours ground mines and anti-tank guns wrecked all the tanks save one, which returned badly damaged. Despite this disaster the men of the 108th pushed on, broke through the Hindenburg Line and held their ground. To their right the 107th, meantime, tore its way through the belts of barbed wire to attack the tunnel. But as it went forward, conquering one area after another, the Germans, armed with machine guns and grenades, came through the underground passages connecting with the tunnel and attacked our troops in the rear, and opened a fire on their left flank from Vendhuille. The 105th regiment was then sent to aid the 107th, and these two, after desperate fighting and in spite of heavy odds, reached the line and forced the Germans out of the tunnel. Men from the 30th Division by this time had driven the Germans before them and captured Bellicourt, Noroy, Riqueval, Carriere, Etricour and Ferme, and had advanced nearly two and a half miles.

October 1 both divisions were withdrawn; but four days later the 30th was back in the front, and in four days of continuous fighting captured a score of towns and villages and advanced nearly ten miles. October 11 the Division was relieved by the 'New York Times Magazine Section, March 9, 1919,

27th, but was again at the front on the 16th, taking over a part of the sector held by the 27th Division near St. Souplet on the Selle River. October 17 the two Divisions forced a passage of the river, climbed the slippery banks on the further side, and by the 19th had driven the enemy back to near Catillon.

When the Argonne-Meuse advances had reached Landres-etSt. George, and Aincreville, October 18, the 37th and 91st Divisions were withdrawn from the front and hastily sent to help the French Army in Belgium. Detraining near Ypres they moved to the Lys River, were attached to the French Army and placed at the disposal of the King of the Belgians. On the night of October 29th the 37th Division crossed the Lys, occupied a line along the Ghent-Courtrai railroad in front of Olsene, and early on the morning of October 31 attacked the Germans and drove them to the Cruyshautem Ridge, half way between Lys and Escaut or Scheldt Rivers. There the enemy made a stand, but was again attacked, routed and driven across the Escaut. Preparations were at once made to force a crossing and attack the Germans on the other side. November 2 the attempt was made, and despite machine gun bullets and shrapnel a bridge was completed by nightfall. All day long November 3 the fighting went on more desperately than before, but by dark nine companies of infantry and four machine gun companies had crossed and established a bridgehead, and there they remained until relieved by the French November 5. Meantime the 91st Division captured Spitals Bosschen, a wood extending across its sector, reached the Escaut and entered the town of Audenarde.

In the 37th and 91st Divisions [said General Degoutte in a general order] I found the same spirit of duty, and the willing submission to discipline which makes gallant soldiers and victorious armies.

The enemy was to hold the heights between the Lys and the Escaut "to the death." American troops, of these divisions, acting in concert with the French Divisions of the group of Armies in Flanders, broke through the enemy on the 31st of October, 1918, and after severe fighting threw him on the Escaut.

Then, attempting an operation of war of unheard of audacity, the American units crossed the overflooded Escaut under fire of the enemy and maintained themselves on the opposite bank of the river in spite of his counter-attacks.

Glory to such troops and their chief! tributed to the liberation of a part of final victory.

They have valiantly con-
Belgian territory and to

From October 2 to 9 the 2d Division fought with the French against the Germans in their old position before Rheims, broke down the defense works on their front, attacked the strongly held wooded hill of Blanc Mont, captured it on the second assault and swept "over it with consummate dash and skill," said General Pershing. "This division then repulsed strong counterattacks before the village and cemetery of St. Etienne and took the town, forcing the Germans to fall back from before Rheims and yield positions they had held since September, 1914."

Reduction of the Château-Thierry salient, the Montdidier salient, the St. Mihiel salient, left nothing for the Allied armies to do but begin a frontal attack along the whole battle front. The part assigned the American First Army was to take over a sector northwest of Verdun, stretching from the Forest of Argonne to the river Meuse. Behind this line was the Longouyon-Sedan railway, over which passed the greater part of the supplies for the German armies on the western front. There also were the Briey iron mines, then used by the Germans and which contained more than half the iron ore in Europe. To cut this railway, and deprive the Germans of the use of the mines, was the task assigned the American army. That it was a task difficult to accomplish and would be attended by heavy losses was well known, for between the railway and the German front, concentrated on the hilltops along a strip of territory but twenty kilometers wide, were five lines of defense, the Hindenburg Stellung, the Hagen Stellung, the Volker Stellung, the Kriemhilde Stellung and the Freya Stellung. The country, about to become the field of an ever memorable battle, was admirably adapted for defense. The Forest of Argonne, impene