The French have had yet another week of desperate fighting
on the blood-stained ridge north of the Aisne. The Crown Prince made a series of violent attacks on the plateaux between Hurtebise and Critonne, where at its eastern end the ridge narrows like our Hog's Back in the Surrey Downs. On Thursday week the Prussian Guard, climbing up from the Ailette Valley, contrived to take part of the French front line, and, despite several counter-attacks, clung to the northern edge of the plateaux. Last Sunday fresh German troops renewed the effort and occupied the front line on the California Plateau, which overlooks Craonne. Throughout Monday they strove in vain to push the French over the southern edge. Next day the French attacked with extraordinary dash, as their commander says, and flung the enemy right out of all his hard-won gains into the Ailette Valley below. Six days and nights of the most desperate fighting had thus yielded the Germans nothing, and had cost them dreadful losses. Nevertheless, they attached once more on Wednesday, and failed anew. The stubborn defence of the California Plateau, a bare limestone hill half-a-mile across, will rank in the annals of the French Army with the most glorious days' of Verdun.
