In this second battle of Champagne the French failed to do what they had set out to do, penetrate the German defenses, cut the railroads, and force a retrograde movement in great force. It was under the direction of General Petain, destined to come into greater praninence at Verdun. It was undertaken in the fullest confidence of success. For months the newly established munitions works had piled up reserve ammunition and it was used without stint or economy. The lesson of Neuve Cha pelle, improved upon by the Germans at Duna jec, was still further developed by the French in this battle. The attack was staged on a front wide enough to pennit fair operation through its broken section, and there was no trouble about the necessary reserves, thus re moving the defects of Neuve Chapelle. But it did not result, as Dunajec resulted, in a great victory for those who projected it. The reason was simple. Dunajec was fought against an army that had not anticipated this land of tactics. At Champagne the Germans theni a complete decision, it had shown that their newly planned organization was success ful. It had bitten deeply into the enemy's de fenses. It was a kind of blow that he dared r.ot have repeated frequently; for by it he, being on tile defensive where losses ought to be relatively light, had indeed lost more than the French. It showed that the German. su premacy in the art of war was 'broken. The months of work in inanition factories and arsenals had borne satisfactory fruit. It only remained to continue what had been so well begun.
Let us now turn to the Lens sector, where the British attacked at Loos on a five-mile front, and the French, fighting at their side, attacked to the southward on a 10-mile front. The movement, as we have seen, was designed as a supporting operation for Petain's battle in Champagne, and began on the same day, 23 had prepared for just such an attack. The long. interval of quiet was improved by the erection of rear defenses. The lines were forti fied with innumerable strong places which re solved themselves into forts as the intervening spaces were carried, thus giving time to check the attackers at the rear lines. Finally, the lateral railroad 'behind the line enabled the Germans to bring up reserves and stop the gap before the French charges had entirely overcome the resistance. It failed on the sec ond day, when the decimated French arrnies found that these newly arrived forces would also have to be defeated and others behind them, before they could hope to stand free in the open country behind the enemy's en trenchments.
Nevertheless, the results of the battle of Champagne gave the French and British a great feeling of satisfaction. If it had not given September. General Foch was in superior com mand of both attacks, but General French as commander-in-chief of the British armies in France had the direction of the attack on Loos. Both armies were well supplied with anununi tion, and the British had received many troops of the New Army of volunteers raised and trained since the war began, but not yet sea soned by actual battle experience. At that time the British forces in France numbered as many as 1,000,000 and were organized in two arrnies, the first, commanded by Sir Douglas Haig arid the second by General Plumer. It
was Haig's artny that held the lines opposite Loos.
The French troops had for their main ob jective the Vimy Ridge, three miles south of Lens, overlooking a wide stretch of coun try to the eastward. If it were taken and held the Germans would be forced back for a con sickrable portion of their lines. Foch's men battled hard for the position when the infantry was sent forward on the 25th on a six-mile front. The bombardment had destroyed the German trenches but machine gunners held out in the ruins and a heavy barrage and a massed counterattack were encountered. Nevertheless the French infantry worked away systematically day by day, and notwithstanding the heavy German reinforcements they carried their lines to the top of the Vimy Ridge on its western side. The enemy clung to the eastern edge and the narrow plateau on the top became No Man's Land. Here on the 28th the two armies faced one another ready for the final effort, which, it seems, would have freed the ridge from German control, when General Foch, at the request of Uneral Joffre, sent his famous ninth corps to take over the trenches just north of Lens, where the British were in trouble through creating too narrow a salient in the enemy's lines. The withdrawal of this corps made it necessary to stabilize the French lines where they were.
Meanwhile, the British battle of Loos had been in progress since the 25th. As it was launched four separate attacks were ma.de to the northward. designed to hold as many of the enemy as possible in these positions, so that the main attack might meet less resistance. These operations were as follows: (1) In the Ypres salient where General Allenby attacked the Germans at Hooge, winning ground in a brilliant dash only to give it up in the face of heavy artillery concentration; (2) at Bois Grenier, where some of the first and second Gertnan trenches were taken before the enemy's concentration forced the attackers back to their original position; (3) at Neuve Chapelle against the Moulin du Pilire, where the In dian troops with some British units fought a losing battle by mshly charging through the German trenches beyond the reach of aid from their supports; (4) at Givenchy, where a slight advance had to be given up before the end of the day. These engagements probably justified their purpose of holding the attention of the enemy while his lines were attacked elsewhere and are not to be judged by immediate results. In the third of them occurred an unusual battle incident. The authorities had adopted the plan of pladng tried British battalions in the In dian brigades. Two of these brigades charg ing in the heavy mist found the trenches oppo site them undefended and went on without stopping to ((mop them tip,)) with the result that Germans reoccupied them and attacked the advancing column from the rear. As the reserves did not come up the two brigades in the front suddenly shifted from victors into hard pressed and perilously sitnated men. They cut themselves out with great losses, especially the second and fourth Black Watch, serving with the Bareilly brigade of the Meerut divi sion.