March 21—Germans open terrific drive on British lines on a fifty-mile front from southeast of Arras as far as La Fère; French lines bombarded north and southeast of Rheims as well as on the Champagne front; Paris bombarded by long-range guns.
March 22—Germans claim 16,000 prisoners in big drive; General Haig reports them gaining at some points and repulsed at others; American artillery fire destroys German first and second line trenches east of Lunéville; violent gun duels in the Aisne and Champagne sectors; French repulse three German raids near Souain.
March 23—Germans smash British front, win victories near Monchy, Cambrai, St. Quentin, and La Fère, and penetrate into second British positions between Fontaine les Croisilles and Moeuvres; British evacuate positions in the bend southwest of Cambrai; Germans penetrate third British position between the Omignon stream and the Somme; Paris again shelled by gun seventy-five miles away; ten persons killed and fifteen or more wounded; fierce artillery fire on the French front from the Oise River to the Vosges Mountains.
March 24—Germans capture Péronne, Chauny, and Ham, and cross the River Somme at certain points south of Péronne; assaults further north repulsed; Paris again bombarded by gun located in the Forest of St. Gobain.
March 25—Germans take Bapaume, Nesle, Guiscard, Biaches, Barleux, and Etalon; French take over sector of British battlefront south of St. Quentin and around Noyon; General Pershing announces that two regiments of American engineers are on the Somme battlefield; long-range bombardment of Paris continues; one long-range gun explodes, killing ten men; American gunners shell St. Bausant and the billets north of Boquetau.
March 26—Germans take Noyon, Roye, and Lihon, and cross the battleline of 1916 at many points; Americans in the Toul sector drive Germans out of Richecourt.
March 27—British, reinforced, beat back German attacks, capture Morlaincourt and Chipilly, north of the Somme, and to the south of the river advance their lines to the village of Proyart; Germans announce the capture of Albert and the crossing of the Ancre north and south of the city; French forced to yield ground east of Montdidier, but check assaults near Lassigny and Noyon.
March 28—British repulse all-day attacks at Arras; Germans capture Montdidier and push their lines as far as Pierrepont, and regain some ground south of the Somme which they lost in 1914; French advance at Noyon for a mile and a quarter on a six-mile front.
March 29—British line south of the Somme pushed back to a line running west of Hamel, Marcelcave, and Demuin; German drive slackens in the north; French in the Oise Valley retake Monchel; seventy-five persons killed and ninety wounded in church near Paris by shell from long-range gun.
March 30—Paris again bombarded by long-range guns; eight killed, thirty-seven wounded; Germans wrest six villages in the Montdidier sector from the French, and Demuin and Mézières from the British, but are repulsed in the Boiry-Boyelles region.