The French government had not failed, as had the British, to profit by the lessons of nine months of actual war. As soon as it found itself in the struggle it turned all its energy to the manufacture of heavy guns and ammu nition. By die spring of 1915 it bad made long strides for,vard in these r ts. When it opened its portion of theertcible offensive, therefore, it was prepared to make a heavy impression on the German lines. It was not able, however, as we shall see, to cut them cosipletely, largely because the Germans had also utilized the interval since the beginning of the war to carry fonvard the same kind of improvements. They had prepared such strong defenses in cannon, machine guns and trenches that even the improved means of offense were not able to obtam a decisive result It was 9 May 1915 that this offensive, the battle of Artois, opened, between Lens and Arras. In this region we are no longer in the fiat and water-logged country that surrounds Ypres. The surface is broken with many de pressions in which were stone or brick villages which made excellent machine-gun defenses. The German lines at this point made a salient about five miles in front of Lens, crossing the heights of Notre Dame de Lorette at the ex treme angle and taking within their limits the villages of Ablain, Carency, La Targette and Souc.,. The soil was chancy and easily cut into trenches with dugouts. At the southeni end of the salient, two and a half miles from Arras, was an intricate series of trenches known as the Labyrinth. The position as a whole was one of the strongest ui the theatre of operations, but to take it would be decisive for a large portion of the western front. It would mean the capture of Lens, important as a centre of roads and as the area whence France had drawn her most considerable supply of coal, so essential to her manufactures of aumi dons.
Against the place the French ma.ssed seven arm,' corPs and 1,100 cannon. General Foch, who was in superior command of operations along the entire French front north of the great angle at Noyon, came to the place and assumed direction of the attack. His plan was to use the tactics employed first by the British at Neuve Chapelle, and repeated later by the Germans at Dunajec, of blowing a great hole in the enemy's trenches and sending through massed columns before they could bring up troops enough to stop the movement The Germans defending the position were von Biilow's army, which took a prominent part in the Marne campaign of 1914, and it was rein forced with three new divisions a few days before the French began their battle, probably because they had received intimation of what was coming.
It was 9 May, the day after the British opened their futile attack against Aubers Ridge, that the French delivered their assauh. The initial bombardment was the most intense yet seen on the western front. Says Mr. John Buchan: cIt simply ate up the countryside for miles?' The trenches from one end of the sector to the other were reduced to powder intermixed with broken guns, rifles and human debris. During the course of the clay more than 300,000 shells were fired. The infamrc went forward behind the barrage at 10 o' in the morning. On the southern side of the salient they crossed the trench lines for large gains, at one place two miles and a half. North
of the point of the angle they were face to face with the ruins of Carency, which the Germans filled with defenders, and with ma chine guns on the top of the heights of Notre Dame de Lorette. It took four days to batter these places into ruins. Into the former 20,000 shells were thrown before it was talcen. Under previous conditions the German line would have been broken and the attacldng force would have swept on Into Lens. But here a new situ ation appeared. The defenses were so intri cately constructed that a break at one point did not carry the adjacent trenches with it What happened, therefore, was that under the attacks of the French the lines of the Germans resolved themselves into a series of little forts, held by machine guns manned by resolute bands of defenders. To take these places required extravagant artillery treatment and careful ap proaches of expert marksmen. In these cir cumstances the advance was slow. It was not the less steady. The ruins of villages fell one after the other. At Souchez was a sugar re finery whose broken walls swarmed with ma chine guns. It c.hanged hands several times but at length remained with the French. The Labyrinth required days of persistent fighting. One set of trenches but protected another, and underground passages enabled the defenders, beaten at one corner, to appear safely at an other. By the end of May the French had beaten in the salient, but they had not taken Lens. The struggle went on as bitterly as ever but it was of little profit to either side. The Germans are supposed to have lost 60,000 men in the struggle, and the French could hare lost few less. But as an attack the battle of Artois was a failure. Vimy Ridge, south of Lens, was the key to the position for which the French were struggling, and it remained in German hands when the fighting died down at the middle of June.
Now catne the inevitable lull after a great effort. Great stores of munitions had been used up, and it would require time to collect what was required for another great attack. That such a renewed attacic would be made went without saying; for it was of the Allied plan to keep trying until they at last found the means of breaking through the German resist ance. Each attempt had its lesson. Neuve Chapelle showed that it was necessary to have great masses of reserves ready to follow the first charge through a breach made by masses of artillery. Second Ypres showed that it was necessary to have high explosives in vast quan tities and to take precaution against gas. The experience of the battle of Artois confirmed the already established fact that the strongest en trenchments could be pierced, but also revealed the immense power of defense in scientifically constructed entrenchments lavishly supplied with machine guns. The Allies were encour aged by reflecting that they were ever growing in strength as the volunteers of Great Britain came through preliminary training. There was, in midsummer, 1915, no question about holding out in the West until Great Britain was ready. Germany herself had taken the defensive in the West, and the time was approaching to deter mine if her defensive could be broken.