PERSPECTIVE MAP SHOWING LOCATION OF OPPOSING FORCES IN PICARDY AND FLANDERS. THE BLACK ARROW LINE ON THE RIGHT SHOULD NOT BE MISTAKEN FOR THE OLD BATTLELINE, WHICH IS NOT INDICATED AT ALL. GENERAL SIXT VON ARNIM'S FORCE, EAST OF YPRES, WAS INADVERTENTLY OMITTED
On April 18 the French made a feint on both banks of the Avre River south of Hangard, drove in a mile, and picked up some prisoners; simultaneously the Germans, with a force of 137,000, made a heavy assault upon the allied front lying across the La Bassée Canal, with a diversion on the Lys River near St. Venant.
SCENE OF THE MONTH'S HEAVIEST FIGHTING IN FLANDERS, ESPECIALLY ABOUT MOUNT KEMMEL
Before the day was done they had switched their attack to the Kemmel sector. In all three places the Germans suffered repulse, with the loss of a few hundred prisoners. Four days later the British advanced their lines on the Lys, just as the French had on the Avre. Then on the 24th came the great enemy diversion at Villers-Bretonneux, nine miles southeast of Amiens. Here the Germans used tanks for the first time. The village, lost to the British on the first day, was recovered on the second, when just to the south the French and American troops were hotly contesting with the Germans the possession of Hangard. The sharp salient at this place made it difficult for the Allies to hold, while its retention, except as a site from which losses could be inflicted on the Germans, was unnecessary. Consequently it was evacuated, after the attacking detachment of the Prussian Guards had been annihilated.
BATTLE FOR MONT KEMMEL
Meanwhile the Germans had been preparing for a decisive assault against Mont Kemmel with ever-augmenting artillery fire and with the concentration of vast numbers of troops on the sidings of the railroad between the villages of Messines and Wytschaete. These troops numbered nine divisions, or about 120,000 men. From the 24th till the 27th they incessantly swung around Mont Kemmel in massed front and flank attacks, until the French and British were forced to give up the height, together with the village of the same name and the village of Dranoutre, retiring on La Clytte and Scherpenberg.
The occupation of Mont Kemmel, however, did not, as Ludendorff had anticipated, force the British out of the Ypres salient, for their voluntary retirement from part of the Passchendaele Ridge on April 17-19 had strengthened the salient, which could hold as long as the line of hills west of Kemmel held—Mont Rouge, Mont Diviagne, Mont des Cats, &c.