This thrusts the enemy by Fontaine-lez-Croisilles, where he is still holding out, into a narrow pointed salient, which should be utterly untenable. The way to Chérisy was taken rapidly by men of the West Kents and East Surreys of the 18th Division without any serious check, although there was savage machine-gun fire. At Fontaine-lez-Croisilles our men found it very difficult to get forward owing to the strength of the enemy's defences south of the wood, and an abominable barrage of heavy shell-fire. They bombed their way down 600 yards of trench, and established themselves round Fontaine Wood on the north-west side of the village.
Farther north fighting carried our line out from Guémappe towards St.-Rohart Factory, just above Vis-en-Artois, but signal rockets sent up here by our men may only come from advanced posts ahead of the main line.
South of the Scarpe, between Monchy and those two woods of ill repute, the Bois du Vert and Bois du Sart, the battle has been similar to other struggles over the same ground, where the enemy stares across to our lines from good cover and has every inch of earth registered by his guns, with a clear field of fire for his machine-guns, of which he has got numbers in enfilade positions. English and Scottish battalions attacked here this morning, and would not give way under the terrific fire, but fought forward in small bodies until they gained the line on the crest of Infantry Hill and 300 yards short of the two woods, now linked together by the Germans with belts of wire and well-dug trenches.
North of the River Scarpe there is great fighting round Rœux, Gavrelle, and Oppy by the Household Battalion, Seaforths, Royal Irish Fusiliers, Warwicks, South African Scottish of the 4th, 9th, and 6th Divisions, and other English and Scottish battalions.
Gavrelle has already been the scene of many attacks and counter-attacks. It was here that in the fighting last month the enemy advanced time after time in close waves, only to be scythed down by our machine-guns, so that heaps of those field-grey dead lie out there on the barren land. To-day those dead were joined by many comrades. When our men advanced they were met by masses of Germans, and once more the line of battle had an ebb and flow, and both sides passed over the dead and wounded in assault and retirement. Four times an old windmill beyond the village changed hands. Four times the Germans who had dislodged our men were cut to pieces and thrust out. Men are fighting here as though these bits of brick and wood are worth a king's ransom or a world's empire, and in a way they are worth that, for the windmill of Gavrelle is one point which will decide a battle or a series of battles upon which the fate of two Empires is at stake. So it happens in this war that a dust-heap like that other windmill at Pozières in the crisis of the Somme battles becomes for hours or days the prize of victory or the symbol of defeat.
In Oppy, above Gavrelle, which I described yesterday as I saw it in the golden haze, the Germans there, whom I could not see, have been very busy. They knew this attack was coming; it was clear that it must come to them, and at night they worked hard to protect themselves, fear being their taskmaster. They made machine-gun emplacements not only in pits and trenches, but in branches of many trees, and wired themselves in with many twisted strands. The Second Guards Reserve, newly brought up, held the village and wood and the white château, with its empty windows and broken roofs, and kept below the ground when our gun-fire stormed above them. So when our men attacked in that pale darkness of a May night they found themselves at once in a hail of machine-gun bullets, and later under shell-fire, which made a fury about them. They penetrated into Oppy Wood, but owing to the massed German troops, who counter-attacked fiercely, they did not go far into the wood or lose themselves in such a death-trap. They were withdrawn to the outskirts of Oppy, so that our guns could get at the enemy and drive him below ground again.
Northwards we stormed and won long trenches running up from Oppy to Arleux, and most necessary for further progress, linking up with the Canadians, who made a great and successful attack upon the village of Fresnoy, just south of Acheville.
That was certainly a very gallant feat in face of many difficulties of ground and most savage fire. They completely surrounded the village and caught its garrison in a trap from which they had no escape. After brief fighting with bombs and bayonets the survivors surrendered, to the number of eight officers and about 200 men belonging to the Fifteenth Reserve Division of Prussians. What made them sick and sorry men is that two of their battalions had just arrived in high spirits, having troops in front of them who were weak, they had been told, and they were ordered to attack Arleux this morning. The Canadians attacked first, and by six o'clock these Prussians were sadder and wiser men. The prisoners escaped our shell-fire, but were nearly done to death behind our lines by their own guns. I saw this incident this morning. They had been put in an enclosure, next to a Canadian field dressing-station flying the Red Cross, when suddenly the enemy's guns began to shell the area with five-point-nines. They burst again and again during half an hour with tremendous crashes and smoke-clouds.
"If those Germans are still there," said a Canadian, "there won't be much left of them."
When the shelling eased off I went towards their place but found it empty. As soon as the shelling started their guards hurried them away to safety farther back behind the lines, and the Canadian wounded were diverted to another route. One of these Prussian officers was shown his old lines captured on April 9, and he asked what regiment had done such gallant work. "The Canadians did it," he was told, "and the same fellows that captured Fresnoy this morning." The Prussian officer could hardly believe it, but when he was convinced of its truth he complimented the Canadian troops who had fought so hard and so far. They were proud young officers, and when I spoke to one or two they would not admit that they had been mastered in this war. They seem to have an unbounded faith in Hindenburg's genius, and in the effects of submarine warfare.