The Forest of Argonne (in French pronounced as /aʁɡɔn/) is a long strip of mountainous and wild woodland in northeastern France, approximately 200km (100miles) east of Paris. The forest measures roughly 65km (40miles) long and 150NaN0 wide filled with many small hills and deep valleys formed by water run-off from the Aire and Aisne rivers rarely exceeding more than 650order=flipNaNorder=flip in elevation.[1] Following the First World War, the landscape of the forest was forever changed as trench warfare led to parts of the forest being riddled with deep human-made trenches along with craters from explosives. The forest is bordered by the Meuse River on the west and rolling farmland and creeks to the east. The forest is largely oak, chestnut, and pine trees, and ferns cover much of the forest floor. Common animal life consists of wild boar, red deer, roe deer, hares, rabbits, foxes, and wildcat.[2]
In 1792, Charles François Dumouriez outmaneuvered the invading forces of the Duke of Brunswick in the forest before the Battle of Valmy.
During World War I, the forest again became the site of intense military action. Bitter fighting between German and Allied units took place here in fall and winter 1914, summer 1915, and fall 1918. During the Meuse–Argonne offensive (1918), several United States Army soldiers earned the Medal of Honor there, including Colonel Nelson Miles Holderman, Major Charles White Whittlesey, Sergeant Alvin C. York, Corporal Harold W. Roberts and William Henry Johnson (a.k.a. "Black Death"), most of them part of the "Lost Battalion". The World War I Montfaucon American Monument consists of a large granite Doric column surmounted by a statue symbolic of Liberty. The monument is located 20order=flipNaNorder=flip northwest of Verdun, not far from the Meuse–Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial.[3]