dred Germans who held the dugouts in the crater were killed to the last man. That night the Germans shelled the new British positions, part of which it proved impossible to hold. In this day's fighting the two brigades lost over 2,000 men, but nearly all the ground was held until a fresh brigade arrived and gave the muchneeded reinforcement required to retain the position.

Western Front, September, 1915

In the early Autumn of 1915 it was estimated that the Germans were defending their western front of 570 miles with a total force of nearly 2,000,000 men. They were outnumbered by the Allies, for Sir John French commanded a million British soldiers in France, while the French had 2,000,000 men on this front with strong forces of recruits in training camps in the rear. There were about 6,000 guns of varied calibre on each side.

By this time the British production of artillery munitions had been very greatly increased over the capacity of the early Spring. The German system of field fortification had, however, been developed to the utmost. Back of every front-line system lay another complete and even stronger line of trenches, completely prepared with wire entanglements, very deep dugouts, &c. The second line was usually about 700 yards behind the first, and a third and stronger position was prepared usually about a mile to the rear. There were frequent fortins or low redoubts of great strength so situated as to enfilade trench systems which might be lost. Against this elaborate fortification the operations took on increasingly the character of sieges rather than field manoeuvres intended to break through or outflank an enemy in the field; but in September the Allies launched two great attacks which it was hoped might win from the enemy some of his vantage ground. The time seemed propitious, for von Hindenburg's great campaign in Russia, while widely victorious, still required every man that could be spared from other fields.

The German lines in France formed a great right angle, whose upper line faced west from the sea to the Aisne, where it bent and ran toward the southeast to the Swiss frontier. The Allies planned to strike two great blows back of the head of this vast salient-one in the north toward Lens, and the other in Champagne about Souain.

The Battle of Loos

On the northern sector a terrific bombardment was maintained from Sept. 23 until the early morning of the 25th, when the British attack upon Loos started. On the French front, facing Vimy Heights, the bombardment continued until early afternoon, when the infantry assaults began and made excellent progress before night. The next day D'Urbal's soldiers fought their way to the lower slopes of the heights north of Thelus, crossed the Souchez stream and gained part of Givenchy Wood. By the 29th the western slopes of Vimy Heights and much of Givenchy Wood had been taken from the Germans, and it became necessary for the French commander to send reinforcements to the British on his left flank, where a deep salient was being held east of Loos by a dangerously inadequate force.

While the French were winning their footing on Vimy Heights the British had fought a series of separate battles both north and south of the Vimy sector. It will be well to realize in connection with this whole series of actions that they were timed to coincide with the great French attack far to the south in Champagne, and intended to so thoroughly engage the Germans in the north as to prevent the dispatch of reserves from that region to the south, where the Allies hoped to be able to break through the invader's fortified lines and reach the railway communications in the rear. The northern attacks were planned to be at least "holding battles, but the numbers of both men and guns employed were so great as to lead to the hope that at some vulnerable spot the German lines might be broken and the railways from Lille southward be reached.

On Sept. 25 the British, after a final bombardment, exploded a mine and then

once more attacked Hooge, the blooddrenched point of the Ypres sector. Two infantry divisions stormed German trenches in some places to a depth of as much as 600 yards, but nearly all the ground gained was so completely commanded by the heavy German artillery that it had once more to be yielded by the end of the day.

Another British attack developed soon

GENERAL DE CASTELNAU

after 4 A. M. in front of Armentières. Here the forces on the flanks made good progress, but the centre failed to gain, so that in the end both flanks were compelled to fall back to re-establish the alignment. The only result here was that the German troops were kept occupied on their own front.

An Unsuccessful Phase

A third battle meanwhile was fought by the British Indian Corps, commanded by General Anderson, above Neuve Chapelle, and this effort was the least successful of all. The faults seem to have been divided between imperfect staff arrangements and unsatisfactory qualities displayed by some of the native troops. Two Indian brigades which rushed over German first-line trenches failed to either clear out or hold the positions, which

were presently reoccupied in dangerous force by the Germans. A reserve brigade of Indians, which should have followed closely the advancing units, stopped in the old British front-line trenches and viewed with dismay a front which, to their astonishment, bristled with resistance, although two whole brigades had swept over it and disappeared beyond. At the opening of this battle one of the Indian divisions (the Meerut) attempted to send a cloud of poison gas over the German lines, but in a drizzling mist with almost no wind the gas lay still, so that when they advanced they were compelled to charge through the gas themselves. As the day wore on, German counterattacks drove back the lines of the Twentieth Division of the Third Corps, which exposed the flank of the Meerut Division, to which the main attack toward Aubers Ridge had been committed.

Gradually whatever plans had existed dissolved and the action degenerated into an utterly confused mêlée, out of which the remnants of the leading brigades finally fought their way back to the old lines. The reports laid great emphasis upon the sturdy courage of the British regular battalions serving with the native brigades. Once more the Neuve Chapelle sector proved a deadly area impregnable to British efforts, and this battle of September in this fatal sector was a failure like the preceding ones of December and May.

Fighting Near Givenchy

Still another attack was made by the British troops near Givenchy, the strongly defended outpost on the west front of La Bassée. Some gains were made, but the lack of reserves made it impossible to hold such of the first-line positions as were entered.

The great British attack on this day of many battles was meanwhile launched against the fortified ridge and quarries west of the La Bassée-Lens road. Here General Haig had Rawlinson's (Fourth) and Gough's (First) Corps for deployment on a front of about eight miles between Givenchy and Grenay. This important phase of the great battle of Sept. 25 opened soon after 6 A. M. with an at

tack on the German positions just below the La Bassée Canal, but, although some progress resulted after desperate fighting, the brigade engaged here was compelled before night to fall back.

Just below this sector another Scotch brigade in a glorious attack won the Hohenzollern Redoubt and a fortified position called Fosse 8. On their right the Seventh Division drove their attack through to the German second line in the Cité St. Elie and the village of Haisnes, both places well in the rear of the Hohenzollern Redoubt and directly on the La Bassée-Lens highway. The lack of sufficient reserves made it impossible to hold the more advanced positions won, and by midday part of the gains had to be relinquished.

The Capture of Loos

Further south Rawlinson's men fought brilliantly, and in an advance of nearly two miles reached the outer edge of Hulluch and captured Loos close to the LensBethune road. In this splendid success there was a notable improvement over the methods which on the same day scored such a failure at Neuve Chapelle. Loos was taken by divisions made up of London regiments which had spent a number of days before the battle in studying a big model of this sector, with the result that when one battalion (the Nineteenth London) lost every officer, the men went on and accomplished their part without hesitation.

Success in this war is reserved for those adequately prepared to win it. However, even successes so won cannot be maintained unless supported by large reserves equally well prepared. The brave Scotch battalions, having taken Loos, pressed on with mad courage into the very heart of a fortified zone beyond. In less than three hours Gordons, Camerons, Seaforths, and Black Watch had driven nearly four miles through the German trenches. An English writer commenting upon the heroic fighting of the Scotch brigades in this battle justly remarked that while what they did was magnificent it was not war, for it was an attack unprovided with reserves. About 10 o'clock word was sent up to the advanced units that they must fall

little more resulted than the prevention of reinforcements being sent by the enemy from the northern positions to his hard-pressed lines in Champagne. There seems to have been a time when the prompt use of adequate reserves in the sector north of Lens might have rescued the whole region between Lille and Douai from the invader. Sir John French was in supreme command, and he had in reserve and immediately under his control the Eleventh Corps, consisting of the Guards Division and the new Twentyfirst and Twenty-fourth Divisions. At the critical moment when the great Scotch charge reached Cité St. Auguste the Guards Division was about twenty

miles away from the Loos sector. General French gave Sir Douglas Haig the Twenty-first and Twenty-fourth Divisions before 10 A. M., but even these troops were eight miles away.

On Sunday, the 26th, the Germans made heavy counterattacks and severely defeated the inexperienced troops of the Twenty-fourth Division, so that a good deal of ground was lost. On Monday the Guards Division, consisting of three brigades of England's finest troops, was sent in to redeem the situation. The Guards fought well. The Third Brigade, consisting of the First Grenadiers, Fourth Grenadiers, Second Scots, and First Welsh, attacked the strongly fortified Hill 70, just north of Lens, and were deployed in columns of half platoons, with 100 yards intervals between the sections and 250 yards distance between the lines. They reached the crest of Hill 70, but could not hold it against the converging machine-gun fire, and, falling back, dug themselves in about a hundred yards to the west. On the 28th the First Coldstreams succeeded in reaching a fortified chalk pit north of Hill 70, but that place, too, was too hot to hold.

Through the remaining days of September and the early part of October, under heavy bombardment, the British consolidated the positions and straightened the lines. They had taken 3,000 German prisoners, with 26 field guns and 40 machine guns. Lord Kitchener in England and Field Marshal French at the front gave unstinted praise to the gallantry of the troops, but there was a distinct disappointment in England, where it was felt that the errors of Neuve Chapelle in the Spring had been repeated and that the possibility of a great victory had been lost because of imperfect plans. Probably the fairest of the many criticisms leveled at the British staff was that which admitted their lack of training in the handling of great armies. Had the splendid British armies possessed a thoroughly efficient and competent General Staff they would have won in the early Autumn of 1915 what they have fought for through two long and bloody years since.

The British losses at Loos and there

about were 45,000, including 3 Major Generals and 28 battalion commanders.'

French Attack in Champagne

While the British were fighting the series of battles which culminated at Loos and d'Urbal's Tenth French Army was fighting for Vimy Ridge all France awaited breathlessly the great effort which it was hoped would smash a way through the German fortifications on the chalk ridges of Champagne. Here the really great effort was planned to deal such a blow as would cut through the invader's railway communications, which so perfectly assisted his Generals to shift men and guns quickly wherever required.

The sector selected for attack was that above Suippes, between Auberive and Ville-sur-Iourbe, and de Castelnau's army was chosen for the grand effort. All through September both French and British airmen flew straight at any German aircraft which attempted to reconnoitre back of their lines. They were most successful in masking the great concentrations of troops back of the sectors selected for attack. Early in the morning of Sept. 25 de Castelnau's men began to crowd forward through the communication trenches under a volcanic discharge of shells hurled over their heads against the German trenches of both first and second lines. Every platoon had been carefully taught just what its own objective was to be, and General Joffre's famous order read: "Soldiers of the Republic: After months of waiting the hour has come to attack and to conquer." Every soldier had an extra ration of wine on the night of the 24th, and trench knives were added to the regular equipment for the close fighting anticipated in trenches and dugouts.

At 9:15 on the morning of Sept. 25 the bugles sounded, the officers cried out "To Win or Die!" and on a front of fifteen miles a splendid French Army charged. Both field batteries ("seventy

*It is interesting to compare the losses in the month of May, 1917, when the casualties amounted to 114.000 as the price of another offensive on nearly the same ground but in which positions won were held and 3,412 Germans were captured.

fives") and cavalry were used during the day, for on that long front the French lines had by night advanced an average of two and a half miles. Four great redoubts had been stormed and thousands of prisoners taken, together with hundreds of guns. On Sunday, the 26th, further progress was made, and on the 27th the French repulsed an attempted diversion by the Crown Prince at La Fille Morte, in the Argonne.

By Wednesday, Sept. 29, the French had sufficiently reorganized their forces to resume the attack, which was directed particularly along the west side of the Souain-Somme-Py road, where the Navarin Farm, on the east side of the highway, and Hill 185, on the west, marked a line about midway between the two towns. The German lines proved too strong to be forced, and, although there was a gap opened near the great Lubeck trench, à concentrated German fire poured through the opening forbade any further advance. In fact, the scientific arrangement of the German fortifications was such that any position captured immediately was subjected to an enfilading lateral fire from neighboring positions, as well as a deluge of shellfire, both direct and indirect. Above the farm called Maisons de Champagne a defensive work called the "Ouvrage de la Defaite " was won and lost over and over again before the brave French soldiers would admit their inability to hold it. All that de Castelnau's men could do was to dig themselves in where they were and fight hard to hold what had cost them so much.

The French losses in Champagne, and including those in Artois at Vimy Ridge, amounted to 120,000 men. The Germans were pushed back nearly three miles on a front of about fifteen miles, but they remained secure in a stronger position than the first, and their railway communications were undisturbed.

Net Results Disappointing

The great allied offensive in the west in the Autumn of 1915 resulted in tremendous battles which won considerable local success, but nowhere succeeded in seriously disturbing the invaders' grip upon France. Nothing was achieved which could be reckoned an offset to

what the enemy had accomplished in Russia through the Summer, and only part of Joffre's optimistic prophecy was realized. The splendid élan of the French soldier did carry him at a bound up to the batteries of the adversary, but the hope that he would charge on past and beyond the fortified lines was doomed to disappointment. Despite superiority in numbers of troops, guns, and shells, the Allies were compelled to realize that the bravest of attempts could not hope to pierce those fortifications. The slow processes of siege operations must be resorted to, and years consumed in a task which it had been fondly hoped might be accomplished in a series of smashing attacks.

It was after the Marne that the Germans dug themselves in so thoroughly on the chalky hills of Champagne, and as the months have lengthened into years they have created a series of defensive works secure from flank attacks and capable of a deadly defense against frontal assaults. The French staff knew the difficulties of their task, and were provided with exact information as to every trench, alley of communication, and clump of trees. Letters or numbers were assigned to each of such objects on the detailed maps furnished to the troops in every sector of the attack. It was found that the wire entanglements between the German trenches attained a width of from 15 to 60 meters. The French official report on the battle in Champagne said that a line showing the different stages of the French advance would assume a curiously winding outline, revealing on the one hand the defensive power of an adversary resolved to stick to the ground at all costs, and on the other the victorious continuity of the efforts of the French soldiers in this hand-to-hand struggle. At the two extremities of the attacking front the offensive could make no progress because of the converging fire of the enemy and his powerful counterattacks.

In an order dated Oct. 5 General Joffre announced the results in Champagne, where 25,000 prisoners and 150 guns were captured and made visible evidence of the splendid success of the opening phase of the battle. That the outcome of the great effort was a bitter disap