The French Offensive on the Craonne Plateau, Champagne.
Throughout May 4, 1917, the British were occupied in organizing and strengthening the new positions they had won in and around Fresnoy and in the sectors of the Hindenburg line near Bullecourt. Repeated German counterattacks were repulsed at all points, except in the neighborhood of Cherisy and the Arras-Cambrai road, where the British were forced to abandon some of their new positions. In the day's fighting the British captured over 900 prisoners. During the night General Haig's troops made considerable progress northwest of St. Quentin and northeast of Hargicourt, where the Malakoff Farm was captured.
By May 5, 1917, the French army was in sight of Laon, and had begun to shell the German positions on the steep hill on which the city stands. The position of the French was decidedly favorable for important operations against the enemy. If they moved up the Rheims-Laon road, and pushed north from Cerny with a strong force, it would be possible to outflank from the south the whole German line, which here turns to the northwest in a wide sweep from Laon, through La Fère to St. Quentin and Cambrai. This operation if successful would compel the Germans to retire to the Belgian frontier.
The Germans were not satisfied with the way things were going, so the Allied command learned from prisoners. It was estimated that they had lost thus far in the Anglo-French drive on this front no less than 216,000 men, of whom the British took 30,000 prisoners and the French 23,000; about 47,000 were killed on the field and 160,000 were put out of action. The British and French casualties had also been very heavy—the former numbering about 80,000 and the latter 93,000 including killed, wounded, and prisoners.
On the British front the Germans continued to make the most desperate efforts to regain a section of the Hindenburg line east of Bullecourt, which the Australians had won in the advance of May 3, 1917. From three sides day and night the sturdy defenders were assailed by the Germans, but their attacks by day were killed by the British artillery, and at night were driven off by bomb and bayonet. The Germans had good reason to value this wedge bitten into the Hindenburg line, for its possession by the Australians weakened an otherwise strong position that ran formerly from Arras to Queant. The British were now in touch with the Hindenburg line all the way from Queant south to St. Quentin, and were pressing the Germans toward the Drocourt switch in the north.
On the new lines east of Mont Haut held by the Germans a position garrisoned by 200 men was captured by the French during the night of May 5, 1917.
The French continued to make progress, slowly but firmly pressing the Germans back from many points, and gaining more ground than they lost through counterattacks. By the 6th of May, 1917, they had captured all the unconquered positions on the Chemin-des-Dames and were masters of the crest over which it runs for more than eighteen miles. The moral effect of this victory was to give the French the assurance that they could beat the Germans on their chosen battle ground and force them out of their deepest defenses into the open field. German invincibility had become a shattered myth.
For some days General Haig's troops had been tightening their grip around Bullecourt, which lies in the original Hindenburg line due east of Croisilles. The Australians who held this front had surrounded the village on three sides and its fall was imminent.
On May 8, 1917, Bavarian troops stormed Fresnoy village and wood and wrested some ground from the British on the western side. During the night the Germans had concentrated large forces for an attack north of Fresnoy which were dispersed by British fire. By a strong counterattack the British recovered all the ground on the west that they had lost on the previous day.
Some idea of the intense fighting in northern France may be gained from the fact that since April 1, 1917, over thirty-five German divisions (315,000 men) were withdrawn from this front owing to their exhausted condition. The French and British had lost heavily, but their casualties were from 50 to 75 per cent fewer than they incurred in the Battle of the Somme.