The Children's Story of the War Volume 4 (of 10) / The Story of the Year 1915

by Edward Parrott

THE BATTLE OF THE ARTOIS.—II.

At ten in the morning of Sunday, 9th May, the infantry advanced; the right seized the ruins of La Targette, and pushed on to capture Neuville St. Vaast, which lies in a hollow to the east of it. The big church, the cemetery, and almost every house in the place bristled with machine guns, and furious fights took place inside the buildings from cellar to garret. Nevertheless, by noon the village was in French hands. Farther north the centre had swept over the torn and tumbled ground which had once been the White Works, had crossed the highroad, and had dug itself in two and a half miles to the east of the position from which it had started that morning. Never since the trench war began had so much ground been gained in a single day. The French troops in the centre were in the highest spirits; as they surged on they plucked sprigs of lilac and hawthorn and stuck them in their caps. Had the whole line been able to advance along with the centre, Lens would have been captured that day. The left, however, was held up in front of Carency, which was now being bombarded. When night fell three lines of German trenches had been won, 3,000 prisoners had been taken, and 10 field guns and 50 machine guns had been captured.