In this first week of September the British air service carried on an extensive campaign of bombing German bases back of the lines of Belgium and northern France. Tons of bombs and explosives were dropped with good results on railway tracks at Ghent, on aerodromes near Cambrai, Courtrai, and Lille, and on billets around Douai. German air raids over the British lines one night killed thirty-seven German prisoners and wounded forty-eight.
Early in the morning of September 6, 1917, troops from British Columbia, operating on the edge of the city of Lens, captured a row of houses 300 yards long occupied by four companies of German troops. This important success served to further reduce the area within Lens that still remained in German hands.
North of Frezenberg the British carried some strong positions and dispersed a hostile counterattack launched against them later in the day. In the evening the Germans returned in strength to the attack and forced the British out.
The Canadians around Lens continued to be in the center of the storm. In the morning of September 7, 1917, the Germans counterattacked all along the front to the west of Lens. After repeated efforts of extreme violence the Canadians were bombed out of part of their positions, but in the area of the slag pile or "crassier" the men from overseas extended their holdings and the new front they established now became a serious menace to German positions along the north side of the Souchez River. This latest advance so enraged the enemy that their entire front was deluged with the heaviest shells that had ever been seen in this area, while from time to time clouds of gas were released which blotted out the scene of the battle, but not the intrepid Canadians, whose gas masks afforded perfect protection.
On the French front there was continuous activity. Every time that the German press gave notice to its public that the French military power was waning and had become a negligible factor in the war the indomitable Gauls by some dashing attack gave evidence that they were very much alive and had no thought of surrender.
For some days the French in the Verdun sector had been busy every day in beating off German attacks, but on September 8, 1917, they assumed the offensive on the right bank of the Aisne and occupied important positions on a front of a mile and a half, capturing during the advance over 800 prisoners. Assaults on the French lines east of Rheims and on the Aisne front resulted in crushing German defeats. At almost every point the French wall of defense held firm, and against it the seasoned troops of the kaiser, who lacked neither persistence nor bravery, dashed themselves in vain.
CHAPTER III
LENS IN RUINS—BRITISH ADVANCE NEAR YPRES
French positions on the right bank of the Meuse north of Verdun were attacked by strong German forces in the morning of September 9, 1917. The assault was delivered over a front of about two miles on both sides of Hill 344. In one section of the line the Germans succeeded in gaining a temporary foothold. By a vigorous counterattack made a little later the French drove them out and captured fifty prisoners. This smashing blow had cost the Germans dearly, for they left over 1,000 dead on the battle field.
On this date (September 9) the British forces carried out successful local operations southeast of Hargicourt, when Northumberland troops carried by storm 600 yards of German trenches and took fifty-two prisoners. East of Malakoff Farm the British attacked and won after heavy fighting a strip of hostile trenches which was much needed to round out their lines in that sector.