In September, 1915, the French offensive in Champagne made itself felt in the Argonne. On the 25th, a subsidiary attack, designed to cover the flank of the main attack, was carried out between Servon and Gruerie Wood, over difficult ground, strongly entrenched by the Germans, and flanked by many machine-guns. After carrying the first German lines, the French troops, who had been counter-attacked and decimated by machine-guns on the western edges of the Gruerie Wood, were forced to retire on their original positions. However, this minor operation prevented the enemy from using the Argonne to launch a counter-offensive on the flank of the main attack. On the 27th, they attacked in the Fille-Morte and Bolante sector, doubtless to cover the despatch of reinforcements from the Argonne to Champagne.
In October the Argonne front suddenly became as calm as it had previously been active. The enemy, discouraged by their losses, in despair of reaching the Sainte-Menehould-Verdun road, and with their hands full elsewhere, remained on the defensive in the Argonne. Their efforts were now turned in other directions—towards Les Eparges, the Trench of Calonne, and Ailly Wood, from which they hoped once more to threaten Verdun. The Crown Prince had expected to cross the Argonne, but after sacrificing thousands of soldiers, he was unable to break down the French resistance. The massed attack on an extended front having only increased his losses without result, he returned to his original plan of trench raids and small local operations, the object of which was to nibble away the ground and exhaust the opposing troops as much as possible.
From November, 1915, the sap and mine fighting was renewed, in which the French gained the advantage. Every month, at one place or another, or at several places at once—at Bolante, Fille-Morte, Hill 285, near the Haute-Chevauchée road, at St. Hubert, Courte-Chausse, and Marie-Thérèse, in the Vauquois sector—mines destroyed the enemy trenches, and there were fierce fights with hand-grenades for the shell-craters.
The battering of the defences, the constant improvement of the equipment, and the construction of deep bomb-proof shelters, mitigated the hardships of war and effected a considerable reduction in the losses of the French.
During the battle of Verdun, fighting in the Argonne was practically limited to artillery duels, the French batteries on the eastern border frequently engaging the enemy batteries in the Bois de Cheppy and Montfaucon.
In 1917, the fighting consisted almost entirely of hand-to-hand struggles for outposts or trenches. The French, who excelled in this kind of warfare, constantly destroyed the enemy mines and brought back numbers of prisoners from more or less extensive raids.
THE OPERATIONS OF 1918
