During the first days of March the Germans were engaged daily in raids all along the French and British fronts, but in every attempt they were repulsed with considerable losses. Determined efforts were made by the enemy to obtain possession of Fort La Pompelle to the southeast of Rheims, which would give them a dominating position from which to complete the destruction of that martyred city. Along a front of nearly ten miles extending from Loivre to Sillery the German infantry advanced from five different points. Some troops succeeded in reaching Alger Farm, a fortified position fronting on Fort La Pompelle, but none was able to enter the fort itself.
The French regiment holding the position in a spirited counterattack drove the Germans back, and regained every inch of ground, though bombarded by thousands of gas shells which filled the air with poisonous fumes. It was during this bombardment that a number of French prisoners escaped their captors and sought refuge in a shell crater where they discovered a large supply of hand grenades. With these they were able to hold off the enemy who tried to capture them and after killing a number succeeded in regaining their own lines.
On March 6, 1918, the Germans made a strong attack on Belgian positions in the flooded zone northwest of Dixmude. At daybreak Beverdyk and Reigersvliet were bombarded by explosives and gas shells and an infantry attack in force followed.
The Belgian artillery replied with a heavy barrage and the fine work of their gunners and riflemen checked the German advance at Beverdyk and eventually drove them back to their own lines. At Reigersvliet the Germans won a footing at several points owing to the fact that the floods in some places had largely subsided, and made an advance comparatively easy.
The German offensive from Arras to the Oise, March-June, 1918.
It was here that a Belgian commander with only nine men and a machine gun, and occupying a bridgehead, held back hundreds of Germans and twelve machine guns until a patrol arrived. With this slight reenforcement the Belgian officer took the offensive and by a dashing attack recaptured the position which the Germans had won in front of the bridgehead. Belgian chasseurs had meanwhile been organizing for a counterattack. To reach the German positions it was necessary to cross the flooded area by a single plank walk which was completely dominated by German artillery and machine-gun fire. But the Belgians went forward as coolly as if on parade amid a tempest of shells, and attacked the invaders with reckless bravery. Close and sanguinary fighting ensued, but by 1 o'clock in the afternoon the Belgians had succeeded in capturing the first of seven posts which lay in a semicircle in front of the bridgehead. For hours the fighting raged back and forth, but the stubborn German resistance broke down before the flaming fury of the Belgian spirit and late in the afternoon the last post was regained from the enemy. The German losses were heavy. Large numbers were found dead on the barbed wire. Belgian gunnery had been remarkably effective. The Germans lost as prisoners five officers, 111 men, and a dozen machine guns.
On March 8, 1918, after a bombardment that lasted all day, the Germans launched an attack on the British lines on a front of nearly a mile from south of the Menin road to north of the Polderhoek Château. The assault was vigorously pressed, aided by intense artillery fire, but the Germans were driven back at all points except in the neighborhood of Polderhoek, where they penetrated British advanced posts on a front of about 200 yards. Here the fighting continued for the greater part of the night, with the result that the British recaptured all the positions they had lost.
In the first ten days of March the Germans made twenty hard-driven raids along the French front, most of which were repulsed without difficulty. In the region of the Butte-du-Mesnil they regained some trenches which the French had won from them in February.