_An Associated Press dispatch dated on the heights of Notre Dame de
Lorette, near Arras, July 10, gave the following account of the 120
days' fight ended successfully by the use of high explosives:_
After fighting 120 days for the hill country between Bethune and
Arras, the French forces are in possession of all the eminences
looking out upon the plain of Flanders. Lille, Douai, and Chambrai all
are visible from here.
Every position along the broad national road between Arras and Bethune
has been won except Souchez, and last night another quarter mile of
trenches in the Souchez web was torn away. The attack was made under
parachute rocket lights, the French burning bluish white and the
Germans greenish white, covering the scene of the desperate conflict
with a ghastly glow.
The most desperate fighting has been along the short ten-mile front
from Arras to Aix-Noulette, which began March 9 with the taking of a
few hundred yards of trenches on the watershed of Notre Dame de
Lorette, where there are the ruins of an old Merovingian military
road. Every day since then some section of the German trenches has
been taken, lost, or retaken.
Each side has been employing formidable artillery both of small and
heavy calibre, the French guns being somewhat more numerous and served
with unlimited quantities of high explosive shells.
A correspondent of The Associated Press today went through five or six
miles of the trenches formerly held by the Germans and reconstructed
by the French, who now have abandoned them to move forward. Upward of
100,000 Germans have fallen or been captured in these trenches,
according to the French official count, since the second week of
March. The French losses, the correspondent was confidentially
informed, while serious, have been much smaller than those of the
Germans. There are thickets of little crosses made of twigs tied
together, marking the graves between the trenches. Some of these
graves have been torn up by the shell fire.
Almost every square yard of this region is marked by miniature craters
caused by exploding shells. Spots where shells penetrated the earth
without exploding are indicated by signs bearing the words "Live
Shell."
One line of the German works was just below the summit of a steep
slope which, from the nature of the ground, could not be shelled
without danger to the French position a little higher up. The Germans
were sheltered in dugouts under the hillside, and their French
assailants, sliding or jumping down into the trenches, were shot or
bayoneted from caves. The line was finally taken by tossing grenades
by the basketful into the trenches until most of the defenders in the
concaved shelters were killed or wounded. Every curve or angle in the
miles of labyrinthine cuttings has its story of tragedy and heroism.
In the party which went over this ground and into the firing trenches
within calling distance of the German lines with The Associated Press
correspondent were Owen Johnson, Arnold Bennett, Walter Hale and
George H. Mair, the last representing the British Foreign Office. As
they approached the lines one shell from a four-inch gun burst within
twenty-five yards of them, while others exploded only thirty or forty
yards away. This incident seemed greatly to amuse the soldiers in the
trenches, who laughed heartily at the embarrassment of the civilians.
The visitors were invited by the soldiers into their shelters, which
are dry caves with narrow entrances and with clay floors covered with
matting or sacking and faintly illuminated by the light which filters
in from the entrance or by bits of candle on the inside. Men who had
been on duty throughout the night were sleeping in these caves.
The men on the firing line express the utmost confidence that what was
done yesterday and this morning they can keep on doing until the war
has been won. They never hear the vague, unverified reports circulated
in Paris, sometimes of tremendous and impossible victories, sometimes
sinister hints of disaster. They know what they have done since March
9, when they were ordered to act on this part of the Aisne. They talk
as a matter of course of another winter campaign, because, they say,
it will take another year to break the German power.