All our efforts were now concentrated on Anlass. We attacked on June 18 and 19, and on the 20th the German positions fell into our hands. Our troops continued on down the valley, capturing 6 officers, 11 non-commissioned officers, and 140 men.
An attack directed at the same time against Winterhagel, situated to the south of Anlass, was marked by a sad incident. A small group of chasseurs who succeeded in breaking through the barbed-wire entanglements found themselves under a crossfire of quick-firers. The men tried to construct a shelter with the tools they carried. The Germans cried "Surrender!" Not one man answered. The quick-firers accomplished their work, and the men were found lying with faces to the ground, as if they had dropped when drawn up in line for parade.
Our attacks were now centred on Metzeral. The factory at Steinbruck was taken on the night of June 17, and a battalion entered Altenkof the day following. On June 21 our men came down from Braunkopf, surrounded the village on the north, and took the railway station. The Germans in Metzeral, threatened with capture, placed quick-firers in several houses to protect their retreat and prepared to set the place on fire. Our artillery quickly demolished the houses in which German artillery had been placed, and our troops entered the flaming streets from the north and west. The village was burned.
On the two following nights, while our troops harassed the retreating enemy, Winterhagel and Sondernach fell into our hands and our line was established along the length of the valley of the Fecht as far as Sondernach.
The action resulted in the capture of 20 officers, 53 non-commissioned officers, and 638 men.
The Crown Prince in the Argonne
An Associated Press dispatch from Paris stated on June 30 that the German attempt to divert the attention of the French from the latter's offensive in the region north of Arras has been productive of gains in the Argonne, where a three-days' bombardment of the French trenches was followed by the capture of French positions near Bagatelle. Elsewhere, particularly on the Yser, to the north of Arras, north of Verdun and near Metzeral in Alsace, there have been artillery exchanges without notable results.
The dispatch recorded the following French official communication, issued June 30:
In the Argonne, after a bombardment lasting three days, the Germans attacked our positions on the road between Binarville and Le Four de Paris, but were twice repulsed. They succeeded only in their third attack in gaining a foothold in some parts of our lines near Bagatelle, and they were everywhere else thrown back after a violent engagement.