ailette

The initial impetus of the assault carried the Germans with "shock" and alternating forces beyond a hypothetical straight line of fifty miles extending from the Scarpe on the north to the junction of the Ailette and the Oise on the south.

April 8—British lines around Bucquoy heavily shelled; Germans drive French back to the western bank of the Ailette River and take Verneuil and the heights east of Coucy-le-Ch�teau; Americans rout German patrol northwest of Toul; French airmen locate and bombard the gun that fired on Paris.

Ailette, āl-let′, n. an iron plate once worn by men-at-arms for defence on the shoulder.

In the history of the World War, most of the great land battles will be named from rivers, the Marne, the Yser, the Somme, the Aisne, the Ailette, the Ancre, the Bug, the Dneister, the Dunajec and the Piave.

In 1917, the French pushed the Germans back between Rheims and Soissons to the Ailette River, where they remained until the Second Battle of the Marne, July, 1918.