Before I describe the fierce fighting on the banks of the Aisne I must try to give you some idea of the surrounding country. The Aisne runs from east to west across North France through a wide grassy valley. It is a sluggish stream, 170 feet broad, 15 feet deep in the middle, and not unlike the English river Trent in character. All along its valley are villages, farmhouses, unfenced fields, and poplar-lined roads, with here and there a little town.
The most important place in the valley is Soissons, which has already been mentioned in these pages. It is a very ancient town, with a history that goes back to the days before Cæsar conquered Gaul. When, in later times, the Franks set up a kingdom to the west of the Rhine, Soissons became its capital. Few places have had so martial a history and have been so often besieged. In 1870 the Germans bombarded the town for three days before they were able to capture it. Prior to the war it was a quiet country place, with a considerable trade in grain and haricot beans. It boasted a beautiful cathedral, three fine old abbeys, and a town hall containing a large library. One of the abbeys sheltered Thomas à Becket for some time in the year 1170.
Looking across the valley from Soissons, we see the hills rising up from the river like a wall. They vary in height, from 200 feet in the west near Compiègne to 450 feet in the east near Craonne.[122] A nearer view of these hills shows us many spurs dipping down sharply into the vale, and between them steep-sided ravines and deep, narrow water-courses carved out by the short and rapid brooks. All the way from Compiègne to Craonne the wall of heights continues, with sometimes a bolder spur and sometimes a deeper ravine. In many of the valleys there are quarries which have been worked for centuries. The hollows from which the stone has been taken, the underground passages, and the heaps of refuse afford abundance of ready-made cover. The top of the plateau cannot be seen from the valley, nor from the high ground on the southern bank of the river, owing to the woods, which dip over the edges of the slopes and descend towards the stream. The lower slopes are, for the most part, steep and grassy, with enclosed coppices here and there. As you know, the plateau stretches northwards to La Fère and Laon, where it drops steeply to the plains of north-eastern France. The villages on the plateau are strongly built of stone.