After several hours of this hurricane shelling, in which a great deal of gas was used, the German infantry advanced and developed attacks against a number of strategical points on a very wide front.
Among the places against which they have directed their chief efforts are Bullecourt, Lagnecourt, and Noreuil, both west of Cambrai, where they once before penetrated the British lines and were slaughtered in great numbers; the St. Quentin Ridge, which was on the right of the Cambrai fighting, and the villages of Roussoy and Hargicourt, south of the Cambrai salient.
Friday, March 22.—The enemy flung the full weight of his great army against the British yesterday. Nearly forty divisions are identified, and it is certain that as many as fifty must be engaged. In proportions of men, the British are much outnumbered, therefore the obstinacy of the resistance of the troops is wonderful. Nine German divisions were hurled against three British at one part of the line, and eight against two at another. All the storm troops, including the guards, were in brand-new uniforms. They advanced in dense masses, and never faltered until shattered by the machine-gun fire.
The enemy introduced no new frightfulness, no tanks and no specially invented gas, but relied on the power of his artillery and the weight of the infantry assault. The supporting waves advanced over the bodies of the dead and wounded. The German commanders were ruthless in the sacrifice of life, in the hope of overwhelming the defense by the sheer weight of numbers.
They had exceeding power in guns. Opposite three of the British divisions they had a thousand, and at most parts of the line one to every twelve or fifteen yards. They had brought a number of long-range guns, probably naval, and their shellfire was scattered as far back as twenty-eight miles behind the lines. During the last hour of the bombardment they poured out gas shells, and continued to send concentrated gas about the British batteries and reserve trenches. The atmosphere was filled with poisonous clouds.
Saturday, March 23.—The enemy has been continuing his attacks all day along the whole battlefront and has made further progress at various points in spite of the heroic resistance of the British troops, greatly outnumbered owing to the enormous concentration of the enemy divisions, which are constantly reinforced and passing through one another, so that fresh regiments may pursue the assaults.
ATTACK AT ST. QUENTIN
The St. Quentin attack began along the whole sweep of the front with six hours' bombardment and intense gas shelling of the British batteries, and afterward an attack was launched by overwhelming numbers of German storm troops. The British battleline was held by some three divisions, from a point south of Pontruet to Itancourt, south of the St. Quentin Canal. Along this sector the enemy line had been held before the attack by three divisions also, but the night before the battle they were reinforced until eight German divisions [upward of 100,000 men] were massed for assault on a front of some 2,000 yards. I believe this is a greater strength than has ever been brought into battle on such a narrow front during the whole of this war.
On this sector, the front north and south of St. Quentin, and opposite the British line further south, the enemy's intention, as is known from prisoners, was to reach the line of the St. Quentin Canal—or the Crozat Canal, as it is sometimes called—on the first day, and then advance in quick stages westward. The rate of progress was to be eight miles on the first day, twelve on the second, and twenty on the third.
In spite of their intense gunfire of massed batteries, supported by Austrian howitzers and large numbers of heavy trench mortars, the Germans' plans were thwarted so far as this rapidity of progress was concerned.