The second assault was made on the following day (the 29th), after a very short artillery preparation, during which only a few shells were fired, most of which failed to burst. Fresh companies attacked further to the right, near the Cigalerie. The men charged with the bayonet, but as on the previous day, were mown down by the German machine-guns and rifles, and failed, after heavy losses. At night, an attempt to rescue the wounded left on the field was unsuccessful, the enemy firing pitilessly on the stretcher-bearers, in spite of the Red Cross lantern.
The third assault was carried out on February 17, 1915, by the 76th, 31st and 46th Infantry Regiments. This time the operation, which almost succeeded, was better prepared. The French artillery had improved its equipment and methods, being now better adapted to stationary warfare. The artillery preparation with guns of 75, 95, 150, 155 and 270 m.m. lasted more than twelve hours. The 31st Regiment of the line charged into Vauquois, and reached the ruins of the church, but, caught by the fire of the Argonne and Montfaucon batteries, and that of the machine-guns of Cheppy, it was forced, after heavy losses, to fall back. Abandoning the plateau, this regiment held on half-way down the hill.
The fourth assault was made on February 28, under further improved conditions. A plan of the village, of which only the ruins were left, was issued to the troops. Each company had its precise objectives assigned to it, and the men were armed, for the first time, with the new hand-grenades, charged with melinite. The bombardment began at dawn. Big guns shattered the shelters, and 75’s, hoisted to the top of the Mamelon Blanc, fed by infantry, who carried up the shells on their backs, fired directly on the village. When the attack began, the band of the 46th Regiment of the line, stationed at the bottom of the ravine, played the “Marseillaise.” Within a few minutes a number of the bandsmen fell killed or wounded, but the survivors sounded the charge, and the storming waves of the 89th, 76th and 46th Regiments
NEAR VAUQUOIS. GERMAN DEPÔT. CAMOUFLAGED BARBED WIRE DEFENCES
dashed forward. Bullets and shells soon silenced the music; of fifteen bandsmen only five escaped unwounded, but the companies leading the charge were by this time climbing the slopes of Vauquois. At the divisional observation-post, General Valdant, who was following the attack, turning with great emotion to his officers, raised his képi, and said: “Gentlemen, salute!” The fight was stubborn; twice the troops, dashing from one shell-hole to another, reached the plateau, the second time standing firm. The houses were taken one by one, and the church reached. The village had been wiped out—only shell-holes, heaps of stones, bits of walls and shattered cellars remained. Throughout the next day the Germans shelled the defenders, who were armed only with rifles. Outflanked, the French were slowly forced back from shell-hole to shell-hole, fighting all the time, but their line of defence, organised under fire on the edge of the plateau, brought the enemy to a standstill. At 2 p.m. the French infantry, for the fifth time, stormed the village, carried the German trenches, entered the ruins, and within half an hour drove back the enemy at the point of the bayonet. At 3, 4, 5 and 5.30 p.m., the Germans counter-attacked; but although troops of fourteen different units were successively launched, they could not dislodge the French from the main street. Twice during the night they tried, in vain, to take the church. For four days and nights, under an incessant pounding by high-explosive shells and a rain of bullets, the French troops held on without supplies, dependent for their food on the rations taken from the dead. The Colonial Infantry, who for a short time relieved the attacking troops, were decimated in a few days. The Germans were already making use of a powerful minenwerfer, to which the French could only reply with hastily-devised mortars roughly made out of 77 m.m. shell-cases, and which carried only 100-150 yards. It was an unequal contest. The Germans attacked almost every night, but were repulsed with hand-grenades and rifle fire, sometimes with the bayonet. The position became untenable and the French had either to retreat or advance. Once more they attacked. On the afternoon of March 4, the 76th regiment of the line took the German trenches west of the church, reaching the wall of the cemetery, in spite of enemy grenades and mines. On the 5th a German counter-attack was repulsed and the capture of Vauquois by the French was definitive. During the night of the 15th-16th, a fresh German attack was easily repulsed. On the 16th, at the Cigalerie, which during the attacks of February and March had served as a dressing station, Standard-bearer Collignon, of the 46th Regiment of the line, Councillor of State, and former Secretary-General to the Presidency of the Republic, who had voluntarily enlisted at the age of fifty-eight, was killed by the explosion of a shell while trying to rescue a wounded man belonging to the 76th Regiment of the line. Ever since, at Regimental roll-calls, his name follows that of La Tour d’Auvergne, and the reply is made: “Died on the field of honour.”