The Story of the Great War, Volume 3 / History of the European War from Official Sources

by Unknown

Despite their most furious efforts during the winter of 1914 and the spring and summer of 1915, in at least forty different attacks, the German gains were very insignificant, and if one considers the line they held after the battle of the Marne and compares it with their present position, one may gather some idea of how little progress they have made.

It was in June and July, 1915, that the Germans displayed their main efforts in the Argonne. Their three great attacks were made with greater forces than ever before (two or three divisions), but the results were as profitless as their predecessors. The heroism of the French barred the way.

At Arras in June, there was almost as much activity as at Ypres. During the last part of the campaign in the Artois, General d'Urbal began an advance between Hebuterne and Serre. The former had been held by the French and the latter by the Germans. The two villages were each on a small hill and not quite two miles apart. There were two lines of German trenches in front of the farm of Tout Vent which was halfway between the villages.

The trenches were held by the Seventeenth Baden Regiment which was attacked by the French on June 7, 1915. The French troops consisted of Bretons, Vendeans, and soldiers from Savoy and Dauphiné. The work of the infantry was preceded by a heavy bombardment to which the German artillery replied. Then the French charged with a dash that seemed irresistible.

On the following day, June 8, 1915, the French gained more ground to the north in spite of the activity of the German artillery. June 9, 1915, saw desperate fighting in the German communicating trenches, and on June 10, 1915, several hundred yards of trenches to the south were taken. The Seventeenth Baden Regiment was only a name and a memory when the fighting ceased; and two German battalions had fared but little better. Of the five hundred and eighty prisoners taken ten were officers.

General de Castelnau, on the day before the fighting at Hebuterne, made a break in the German line east of Forest of l'Aigle which is a continuation of the Forest of Compiègne but is separated from it by the Aisne. Within the French lines were the farms of Ecaffaut and Quennevieres. The Germans held Les Loges and Tout Vent. There was a German salient opposite Quennevieres with a small fort at the peak of the salient. Defenses had been built also where the northern and southern sides of the salient rested on the main line of trenches. There were two lines of trenches on the arc of the salient with three lines on a portion of the arc. An indented trench held the chord of the arc. The Germans had placed several guns in a ravine which ran down toward Tout Vent. Four companies of the Eighty-sixth Regiment had held the salient.

On June 5, 1915, the reserve troops were taken from the Tout Vent ravine for reenforcements. Their places were occupied then by other German troops. The French artillery bombarded the fort at the peak of the salient, and all of the trenches and defenses of the Germans in that neighborhood and the French infantry kept up a rifle and machine-gun fire which was an aid in preventing the Germans from repairing the damage done their defenses. The bombardment continued all day and all night and increased in volume and intensity on the morning of June 6, 1915. Then it was continued intermittently. A mine under the fort at the peak of the salient blew up. The Germans who sought refuge in their dugouts found them unavailing. The shells had blown the roofs from those places of supposed safety. In many instances their occupants had been buried in the débris and suffocated. The French artillery lengthened its range and made a curtain of fire between the Germans on the front and the German supports in the rear. Then the French infantry charged. The men had dispensed with knapsack that they might not be hampered with unnecessary weight. All had three rations and two hundred and fifty rounds of ammunition. They were also provided with two hand grenades and a sack. The last was to be filled with earth. The filled sacks were sufficient to form breastworks with which any place taken might be held. With a cheer the French infantry ran across the two hundred yards between the two lines. The German infantry's nerves had been so badly shaken by the bombardment that only a scattering fire, badly directed, greeted the French. It was but the work of minutes to take the first line of German trenches. The two hundred and fifty survivors of two German battalions were made prisoners. The German reserves in the ravine on the Tout Vent farm made a dash to aid their fire line; but the French artillery shells accounted for them before the reserves ever reached those whom they would have relieved. Thus in less than an hour 2,000 Germans were put out of the fight. The French who had been selected for this work included Bretons, Zouaves, and Chasseurs.

The Zouaves then made a dash for the ravine on the Tout Vent front. There they came upon a field work equipped with three guns. This work was protected by wire entanglements. The German artillerymen retreated to their dugouts, but the Zouaves captured them and their fortification. At that stage of the fighting the French aviators saw German reenforcements on their way to take part in the battle. The aviators signaled to their troops this information. Two German battalions were being hurried in motor cars from Roye to the east of the Oise; but before they reached the scene of the fighting the Germans managed to mass for a counterattack. It was ill-planned and executed. French shrapnel and machine guns annihilated those making the counterattack. In the meantime the French sappers were fortifying with sacks of earth the ends of the salient, so that by night the French were in a position to hold what they had gained. The precautions which the French had made were shown to be extremely timely, for that night the reenforcements from Roye made eight desperate attacks.

The lack of success throughout the night did not prevent the Germans from making a reckless attack on the French works at both ends of the salient on the morning of June 7. The Germans made their advance along the lines of the communicating trenches. They were greeted with a shower of hand grenades. By nightfall the Germans seemed to have wearied of the attacks. The total German loss in killed in this engagement was three thousand. The French had lost only two hundred and fifty killed and fifteen hundred wounded. They captured a large amount of equipage and ammunition, besides twenty machine guns.

The French front south of Pont-à-Mousson, on the Moselle, through the gap of Nancy to the tops of the Vosges experienced only slight changes during the spring and summer of 1915. The Germans assumed the offensive in the region of La Fontenelle, in the Ban-de-Sapt, in April and June. The French engineers had built a redoubt to the east of La Fontenelle on Hill 627. The Germans found they could not take it by an assault; so their sappers went to work to tunnel under it; but they had to bore through very hard rock and the work was necessarily slow. The French, learning of the mining operations of their foes, started a countereffort with the result that there was a succession of fierce skirmishes under the surface of the earth. Finally the German sappers were lured into a communicating tunnel which had been mined for the purpose and they all perished. The greatest activity of the sappers was between April 6 and April 13, 1915. On the night of the latter date the officers of the Germans tried to rally their men for further operations, but their soldiers had had enough and refused to renew their work.