short distance of Cherisy and Fontaine-les-Croisilles,
holding all their newly won positions against attack.

It was noted by the British command that the Germans during this
second phase of the battle of Arras had fought with exceptional
ferocity, which even the heavy losses they incurred did not weaken. On
the front of about eight miles seven German divisions were employed.
British guns were effective in shattering massed counterattacks, and
there was considerable hand-to-hand fighting in which the British were
sometimes badly handled, but at the close of the day the British had
recovered all the positions they had been forced out of temporarily.
The fighting continued on the 24th, but was less ferocious, the
opponents having exhausted themselves in the previous day's efforts.
In the second and third day of the offensive the British captured
2,000 prisoners.

During the night of April 23, 1917, the British advancing on a wide
front south of the Arras-Cambrai road captured the villages of
Villers-Plouich and Beaucamp and pressed forward as far as the St.
Quentin Canal in the vicinity of Vendhuille.

The second phase of the offensive in the Arras region was especially
notable for the victories won by the British in the air. In one day
forty German machines were brought down, while the British lost only
two.

The British advance was now necessarily slow, for they were no longer
engaged in rear-guard actions as in the first phase of the offensive,
but faced strong bodies of troops whose valor was unquestioned. Thus,
as in the first days of fighting in the Somme, there was desperate
fighting to gain or regain a few hundred yards of trenches. With
varying fortunes the opponents fought back and forth over the same
ground without either side gaining any distinct advantage, though both
were losers in precious lives. By early morning of April 25, 1917,
Scottish and British troops had reestablished the line on the Bois
Vert and Bois de Sart.

A striking incident in connection with the fighting in this area was
the recovery of parties of British soldiers who had been given up as
lost. They had been cut off from rejoining their regiments and had
come through the most ghastly perils, being swept by a British barrage
that preceded an infantry attack and subjected to the deadly and
constant shelling of the German guns. They had clung to their isolated
positions in the face of all these terrors and not a man was killed.