stration: Allies' Gain at the Somme, up to February, 1917.]

In the neighborhood of Transloy on the Somme front British forces
carried out a successful operation on January 27, 1917. Owing to the
blizzard weather the Germans evidently did not expect an attack,
perhaps thinking that the British would remain under shelter as they
were doing. No unusual preparation seemed to be going on within the
British lines that would suggest to an outside observer that an
important military operation was about to be launched. But in the
British trenches well prepared and organized troops were waiting the
order to attack. Suddenly the British batteries spoke in thunderous
tones, showering German trenches and defensive works with shells of
enormous destructive force. The barbed-wire obstructions before the
German positions were cut like packthread. The British troops at the
signal sprang out into no-man's-land following the curtain of fire.
Sweeping over and around the position, the Germans were trapped in
their dugouts before they could get up to bomb the invaders or fire
upon them with machine guns. The whole German garrison of this strong
position gave up the fight after making but slight resistance.

The prisoners, numbering six officers and 352 men of the Hundred and
Nineteenth and Hundred and Twenty-first Regiments, the Wuerttembergers
of Koenigen Olga, who had hardly recovered from the surprise occasioned
by their capture, were packed into old London busses and were hurried
to their camp on the British side of the battle field.

The prisoners confessed that they had been caught napping. The British
gunfire they had believed was simply the usual morning salutation, and
remained in their dugouts until it was over. They said they would have
put up a fight if they had had any kind of chance, but taken by
surprise they could only surrender.

German gunners at other points had by this time observed the red
lights that went up, the signals of distress, and thus learned that
the position had been captured. But they were too late in getting
their guns into action, and the white haze that hung over the scene at
that early morning hour hindered their observation, so that the feeble
fire they could concentrate on the captured position did no harm.

The British had pressed on farther than the objective given to them to
a point 500 yards beyond the German first line, where they established
themselves, finding the deep warm dugouts much mor