The front cut the "tranchée de Calonne" a little to the south-west of Saint-Rémy. On both sides it was bombarded and kept busy with never-ending attacks and counter-attacks.
In March 1915, the French brought into position there naval 140 guns intended for firing at a 12,000 metre range over Éparges, right behind the enemy lines. It was with difficulty that the sailors installed their heavy guns in this clay soil.
This effective bombardment irritated the Germans, who on the 24th, launched a mass attack which reached the third support line.
The naval officers who were isolated in their post with their telephone wires cut and no contact with the infantry, rapidly organised their defence and swept the ground with the fire of their only heavy guns and a few 75s, dragged up by hand, which fired with their sights at zero.
The Germans, however, continued to advance, and on the 25th they were no more than one kilometre from the guns, the only protection for the sailors now being broken down trenches and the remains of barbed wire entanglements. On the 26th, while the sailors were preparing to make a firm stand against the enemy's attack, two French battalions of chasseurs, called in to reinforce, crawled through the undergrowth and gradually got up to the position from which they counter-attacked. On the 27th, the firing died down, but the Germans reorganised and again attacked on May 5th. The first rush gave them some advantages, which were quickly wrested from them by the arrival in the field of the Moroccan brigade and six battalions of chasseurs who recaptured, in a few hours, all the ground lost on April 24th.
The Tranchée de Calonne.
On the left, commences the Éparges road which is impassable for cars.
The Tranchée de Calonne enters the forest, every part of which was used by both sides during the war for engineers' and artillery parks, aid posts, shelters, small-gauge railways and gun emplacements of which trace can still be found.