SPRING OPERATIONS IN OTHER SECTORS

While greater issues were being fought out in the Verdun sector, from the beginning of the second phase of the German attack during March, there was considerable sporadic "liveliness" on other parts of the western front. Though the main interest centered for the time around the apparently impregnable fortresses of which Verdun is the nucleus, a continuous, fluctuating activity was kept in progress along the whole line up to the opening of the big allied offensive on the last day of June. March 1, 1916, found the battle line practically unchanged. From Ostend on the North Sea it ran straightway south through the extreme western comer of Belgium, crossing the French frontier at a point northwest of Lille. From there it zigzagged its way to a point about sixty miles north of Paris, whence it then followed an eastern tangent paralleling the northern bank of the River Aisne; thence easterly to Verdun, forming there a queer half-moon salient arc with the points bent sharply toward the center. From the south of Verdun the line extended unbroken and rather straight south and a little easterly to the Swiss frontier.

In the Ypres sector during the first four days of March the fighting was confined to the usual round of violent artillery duels, mine springing, hand grenade skirmishing, intermittent hand-to-hand attacks and effective aircraft raids. On March 1, 1916, twenty British aircraft set out seeking as their objective the important German lines of communication and advanced bases east and north of Lille. Considerable damage was inflicted with high explosive bombs. One British aeroplane failed to return. From all parts thrilling, tragic and heroic aerial exploits are recorded. While cruising over the Beanon-Jussy road a German Fokker observed a rapidly moving enemy transport. Reversing his course, the pilot floated over the procession and dropped bombs. The motor lorries stopped immediately, when the aeroplane dropped toward the earth, attacked the transport at close range and got away again in safety. On the same day also a French biplane equipped with double motors encountered an enemy plane near Cernay, in the valley of the Thur, and brought it down a shattered mass of flame. North of Soissons, near the village of Vezaponin, a French machine was shot down into the German lines; another French aero was struck by German antiaircraft guns; with a marvelous dive and series of loops it crashed to earth. Both pilot and observer were buried with their machine. During the evening of March 1, 1916, the German infantry, after a furious cannonading north of the Somme, delivered a sharp assault on a line of British trenches, but were held back by machine-gun fire. Along the Ypres sector the same night violent gunfire took place on both sides with apparently small effect or damage. In a previous volume it was mentioned that the Germans had once more recaptured the "international trench" on February 14, 1916. For a fortnight the British artillery constantly held the position under fire and prevented the consolidation of the ground. At 4.30 a. m. the British infantry suddenly emerged from their trenches. The grenadiers dashed ahead, smothering the surprised Germans with bombs. The general disorder was increased by the fact that the trench parties were just being relieved. In a few minutes the lost ground was recovered, the German line dangerously pushed in and 254 prisoners, including five officers, fell to the British. At midday the Germans bombarded the line with fifty batteries for four hours. Then waves of assaulting columns were let loose against the British. The latter noticed that the front line of infantry hurled their bombs several yards behind the British trenches and rushed forward with hands up. Immediately a hurricane of shells from their own guns burst among the German infantry. The survivors flung themselves on the ground and crawled into the British trenches for protection. This action was the more significant in that the men who thus surrendered were all very young and belonged to a regiment which, until then, had fought with conspicuous bravery. At the end of the day the British counted more than 300 corpses, while their own losses were slight and their entire gains maintained.

Most of the combats in the Artois and Ypres sectors consisted of mine springing and crater fighting. What was once the Hohenzollern Redoubt was particularly the scene of some vigorous subterranean warfare. What happened there on March 2 is thus described by an eyewitness: "Many huge craters have been made, won, and what is more, retained by a rare combination of skill, courage, and endurance. Men who fought all through the war have seen nothing comparable with the largest of these craters. They are amphitheaters, and cover perhaps half an acre of ground. When the mine exploded at 5.45 p. m. on March 2, 1916, a thing like a great black mushroom rose from the earth. Beneath it appeared, with the ponderous momentum of these big upheavals, a white growth like the mushroom's gills. It was the chalk subsoil following in the wake of the black loam. With this black and white upheaval went up, Heaven knows, how many bodies and limbs of Germans, scattered everywhere with the rest of the dÉbris. And the explosion sent up many graves as well as the bodies of the living. One of the British bombers who occupied the crater and spent a crowded hour hurling bombs from the farther lip found that he was steadying himself and getting a lever for the bowling arm by clinging on to a black projection with his left hand. It was a Hessian boot. The soil of the amphitheater was so worked, mixed, and sieved by the explosive action and the effects of the melting snow that it was almost impassable. A staff officer, among others, who went up to help, had to be pulled out of the morass as he was carrying away one of the wounded. There is no fighting so terrible and so condensed as crater fighting. The struggle is a veritable graveyard, a perfect target for bomb and grenade and the slower attack of the enemy's mine. The British held a circle of German trenches on a little ridge of ground north of Loos. The capture meant that they could overlook the plain beyond and win a certain projection. At 6.00 p. m. on March 2, 1916, the engineers exploded four mines under the nearer arc, and within a few minutes, while artillery thundered overhead, the British infantry advanced in spite of terrible mud and occupied each crater. Not a single machine gun was fired at them as they charged—probably the mines had destroyed them all—and their casualties were very small indeed."

Germans counterattacking hurried up their communication trenches, and as they came on some examples of prompt handiwork stopped their advance. A sergeant and one man stopped one rush; a color sergeant and private, well equipped with sandbags, each holding a score of bombs, performed miracles of resistance. Every night the Germans came on, capping a day of continuous bombardment with showers of bombs, rifle grenades, and artillery, mostly 5.9 howitzers, and with infantry onsets at close quarters. They stormed with dash and determination, backed by good artillery and an apparently inexhaustible stock of grenades. The tale of the German losses was high. One communication trench packed with men was raked from end to end with a British Lewis gun till it was a graveyard. On this occasion the British artillery was overwhelming in amount and volume; shells were not spared, and they fired ten to the Germans' one. Within less than a mile and a half there were eight groups of mines.

On March 3, 1916, an intense artillery duel progressed for possession of the Bluff, an elevated point above the Ypres-Comines Canal. The Germans evidently regarded the point as important, for they flung great masses of troops over the Bluff, when the British attacked and captured more than their lost lines of trenches running along an eastern hillock by the canal. The next night and morning the British heavy artillery poured a continuous stream of shell on the Bluff in well-marked time. The men in the front trenches began cheering, as always before an attack, but instead of advancing they shot over a heavy shower of bombs. One soldier alone was credited with having flung more than 300 bombs into the German trenches. In the obscurity of the gray dawn British troops quietly and suddenly dashed into the Germans and cleared the trenches with bayonets. This was accomplished in two minutes, when the large guns spread a curtain of fire over the Germans, inflicting severe losses. The German soldiers then attempted resolute counterattacks, but were repulsed with machine-gun fire.

Between the 1st and 4th of March, 1916, there was sharp grenade fighting southeast of Vermelles, in some mine craters. After severe bombardment the Germans attempted to recapture the craters by infantry attacks, but apparently without success. In Artois they endeavored to drive the French from a crater they occupied near the road from Neuville to La Folie, and failed in the enterprise. In the Argonne the French bombarded the German organizations in the region southeast of Vauquois and demolished several shelters, while in Lorraine, in the neighborhood of the Thiauville Ponds, the French carried sections of German trenches after artillery preparation, capturing sixty prisoners, including two officers, and some machine guns. On March 4, 1916, a serious explosion occurred in the powder magazine known as "Double Couronne," St. Denis, a fort used by the French as a munitions store. The concussion was so terrific that a car a considerable distance away and containing thirty-two passengers was overturned and nearly all were injured. Altogether the casualties amounted to about thirty-five killed and 200 wounded.

In the Ypres sector during March 4 and 5, 1916, the fighting came to a standstill and the positions remained unchanged. In the Champagne vigorous artillery action continued on both sides with occasional infantry attacks and counterattacks of little consequence. In the district about Loos and northeast of Ypres heavy cannonading endured all day on the 6th, the Germans hurling quantities of large caliber shells over the enemy's trenches without any apparent object. On the Ypres-Comines Canal the British still held the positions gained by storm on March 2, 1916. Near Soissons the French heavily bombarded the German works, and their terrific fire at Badenviller in Lorraine compelled a German retirement from the positions established there February 21, 1916. In the Flanders sector, on the Belgian front, concentrated artillery fire silenced German bomb throwers in a futile attempt to capture a trench. In the Woevre district the German troops, after a fierce assault, stormed the village of Fresnes and captured it, the French retaining a few positions on the outskirts. The German infantry advanced in close formation and literally swarmed into the village, while the French 75's and machine guns tore great gaps in their ranks. Northeast of Vermelles small detachments of British troops penetrated the German trenches on March 6, 1916, but were compelled to retire. Active engagements and furious hand-to-hand fighting centered around Maisons de Champagne. The positions the French had taken on February 11, 1916, were recaptured by surprise bayonet attacks, the Germans taking two officers and 150 men prisoners. In the Argonne region attempts on the part of the Germans to occupy some mine craters were repulsed.[Back to Contents]