Having crossed the Oise-Aisne Canal, 1st Mountain Division now pressed southward toward Soissons. In their way stood the Chemin des Dames, a wooded ridge line that had witnessed intense and bloody fighting during the last war. Amid what the jagers came to know as "The Green Hell", French mountain troops prepared to fight for every rock and every tree.

After another terrific artillery barrage, the jagers entered the forest and spent hours in intense fighting before finally securing the road to Soissons. The French mountain division had spent the early weeks of the campaign on the Italian border and, uninvolved in the events of May, continued to maintain its high morale. But with the divisions on its flanks crumbling, the chasseurs would have little opportunity to counter-attack the advancing Germans

pre-plotted artillery strikes