The Allies, despite considerable losses and the yielding of some miles of territory, were undismayed. The Germans had not attained their objectives at any point. Hard fighting was still in progress, but the British were holding strongly the whole front line to which they had withdrawn. The British had used only a few troops besides those that held the front lines. The brave defense maintained by these shock troops enabled the British main body to fall back on the positions they had established a long time before the German offensive was started.
The range of the German 80-mile gun.
Owing to the German methods of advancing in dense masses their losses had been terrific. The British identified fifty German divisions that had been hurled into the sea of fire made by the Allied artillery, machine guns, and rifles. The British losses were considerable, but principally in prisoners. They also lost a number of guns, but very few pieces of artillery were captured by the Germans after the first day of the offensive.
The hardest fighting on March 25, 1918, was around Bapaume. The British artillery on the heights west of the town broke up every attack which the Germans launched. Later in the day the British were forced to withdraw to the west, leaving the town in enemy hands. On the following day the Germans renewed their attacks, but by afternoon these had ceased, and the British took advantage of the comparative calm to retire in good order to their old positions behind the Ancre which they held in July, 1916, when the battle of the Somme began.
The Germans began their attacks on the Allied front south of the Somme early in the morning of March 26, 1918, and about 10.30 had captured Roye. West of this place and Noyon the British, French, and American troops held the enemy in check. Fresh German divisions brought forward pressed the attack all along the Somme. The assaults around Chaulnes and on the front northward from there to Bray were especially violent. The German troops displayed a reckless bravery in these attacks and were heavily punished. Their losses were so considerable that reenforcements were brought up from all parts of the western front. It was established by the British that more than seventy divisions (about 840,000) men were engaged.
The net results to the Germans during the seven days' fighting may be briefly summed up as follows: They had won back most of the line they lost when retreating from the Somme line of 1916 on the fifty-mile front between the Oise and the Scarpe and this stretch of territory is from twenty to twenty-five miles wide along about forty miles of front. Though the Germans had failed to gain all their objectives and the offensive had not proved as successful as they hoped for, the Allies were not disposed to minimize the seriousness of the situation. They found comfort in the fact that in the seven days' fighting the British who had borne the brunt of the blows had lost in killed, wounded, and missing not more than 100,000 men while the German losses were nearly 600,000. It was also believed that at least one half of the remaining German troops had reached such a point of exhaustion that they could no longer do effective fighting. At the close of the seven days' struggle the battle line took in Fenchy, Boyelles, Hebuterne, Albert, Chapilly, Bray-sur-Somme, Avre, and Noyon.
After an all-day battle north and south of the Somme, with Arras as the chief center, the British forces beat off the Germans, inflicting heavy losses. The attack on this new sector, delivered on a wide front north and south of the river Scarpe, was opened with an intense bombardment, and under cover of smoke clouds. The Germans were unable to break or even bend the British front and they lost a large number in killed and prisoners. South of the Somme, the British, subjected to fierce assaults, maintained their positions throughout the day, but the Germans brought forward fresh troops, and by sheer weight of numbers forced the British about nightfall to fall back on Chapilly. North of the Somme the British maintained their line intact.
On the same day the French made substantial gains on the front from Lassigny to Noyon, advancing their line about ten kilometers (6.21 miles) to a depth of about a mile and a quarter. During the entire morning the Germans pressed vigorous assaults in the region of Montdidier in attempts to enlarge their gains west and south of the town. The French troops in spirited counterattacks drove the Germans out of the village of Courtemanche, Mesnil-St. Georges, and Assainvillers, and proceeded to occupy these places solidly.