fire with rifles and machine guns, placing a barrage 2,000 yards ahead of them, under cover of which the succeeding wave advanced.  Thus each wave passed over the one ahead of it, and fresh troops were constantly coming to the front.  With such tactics, against a spirited and determined foe, the losses of the attackers were naturally enormous.  In fact, it was estimated that the casualties suffered by the Germans during the first few days of such fighting amounted to 250, men.  But, driven on by ruthless commanders, they continued to advance in masses, though mowed down by the British at every successive step.

“All the German storm troops, including the guards, were in brand-new uniforms,” said the correspondent of the New York Times.  “They advanced in dense masses and never faltered until shattered by the machine-gun fire.  The supporting waves advanced over the bodies of the dead and wounded.  The German commanders were ruthless in the sacrifice of life, in the hope of overwhelming the defense by the sheer weight of numbers. * * * Still they came on, with most fanatical courage of sacrifice.  When the first lines fell, their places were filled by others, and the British guns and machine-guns could not kill them fast enough.”  Two batteries of field artillery at Epehy, it is said, “fired steadily with open sights (that is, pointblank) at four hundred yards for four hours, into the German masses swarming over No Man’s Land.”

On the first day, some field batteries aided the Germans, but these were soon left behind in the advance over difficult and shell-torn ground, and the battle became one of rifle and machine-gun fire and hand-to-hand combat.

On the north the British 3rd army made a splendid resistance and held its ground well, but the 5th army farther south, which bore the principal brunt of the attack, under General Gough, was gradually forced to retreat, though in good order, in a northwesterly direction, towards Amiens.  French troops were ordered from the southwest to reinforce the British in the vicinity of Noyon.  There the French stemmed the tide of Germans, and the drive was soon turned northward, with Amiens as its evident objective.

ALLIED LINES BEGIN TO HOLD FIRM

The battle continued along these lines, with the British still slowly retiring, with their faces to the foe, until the 26th of March, the French stretching their lines farther and farther to the left to keep in touch with the British, and never failing to maintain connection between the two armies.  The Germans’ fond hope of cutting them apart was doomed to disappointment.  French and British cavalry aided in keeping the line intact, and for the second time since the early days of the war the horsemen came into their own, doing valiant service in covering the retreat of the British and impeding the enemy’s advance at many points where their aid proved invaluable.