. Battlefields of the World War, western and southern fronts; a study in military geography . ol of indirectartillery fire from batteries (b) hidden in ravines in the plateau; and machine-gunnests (m) at the base of the cliff which are connected by tunnel (t) with the upland,and from which the gentle lower slopes may be swept by a grazing fire (g), much moreeffective than a plunging fire (p) from the crest. of the Saffais and Meuse plateau margins (Fig. 112) and in thecase of the Marne plateau led Sir John French to complain of theadvantages it afforded the Germans occupying the upland northof
. Battlefields of the World War, western and southern fronts; a study in military geography . ol of indirectartillery fire from batteries (b) hidden in ravines in the plateau; and machine-gunnests (m) at the base of the cliff which are connected by tunnel (t) with the upland,and from which the gentle lower slopes may be swept by a grazing fire (g), much moreeffective than a plunging fire (p) from the crest. of the Saffais and Meuse plateau margins (Fig. 112) and in thecase of the Marne plateau led Sir John French to complain of theadvantages it afforded the Germans occupying the upland northof the Aisne. Natural Bastions and Curtains In plan the Moselle plateau, like that of the Meuse, shows asuccession of projecting points, or bastions, alternating with re-entrant angles, or curtains (Fig. 91 and PI. V). Starting fromthe north we have first the Pont-a-Mousson curtain, corre-sponding in more than one respect with the Commercy curtain ofthe Meuse plateau. Then comes the bastion which we may namethe Amance bastion from the vitally important mesa, Mont 442 BATTLEFIELD OF LORRAINE. MOSELLE PLATEAU 443 dAmance, near its apex. The Nancy curtain is bordered on thesouth by a slightly projecting spur of the Haye Forest massifreferred to by French military writers as the Heights of Ludres,and which for convenience we may call the Ludres bastion. Nextsouth is a broad curtain dominated by the centrally located MontdAnon butte, beyond which a great bastion projects far forwardto terminate in the Vaudemont and other buttes. We may callthis the Vaudemont bastion, including by this designation notmerely the bastion form of the triangular butte itself but thewhole forward-projecting mass of the upland. Beyond the cur-tain of Chatenois to the south the border of the plateau is of moreeven alignment. Against a frontal attack these natural bastionsand curtains would oppose many of the difficulties which on asmaller scale the similar features of an artificial fortress wereintended to oc
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectworldwar19141918
