rced from time to time. The "Observer" writes:_

French attacks on May 9 and days thereafter failed to modify the
situation. At the end of May the French decided to finish things, and
the order was given to take the Labyrinth inch by inch.

This meant an operation of two principal phases of different nature.
It was necessary, first, by well-prepared and vigorous assaults, to
get a footing in the enemy organization, and then to progress to the
interior of the communicating trenches, repulsing the enemy step by
step. These two operations lasted more than three weeks and resulted
in complete success.

The debouch must have been difficult, as numerous German batteries,
composed of 77-millimeter guns, the 150, 210, 280, and even 305
millimeter guns, concentrated their fire on us. They were stationed at
Givenchy, La Folie, Thelus, Farbus, and Beaurains, south of Arras.
Nevertheless, our men understood, and prepared to do their duty.

It was on May 30 that the assaults began, our regiments marching out
from different points. Their ardor was admirable.

Everywhere, except on the right, we captured the first line. Behind
this were a great number of barricades and fortlets. We took some of
these, while others stopped us. One hundred and fifty prisoners,
surprised in their holes by the furious charge of the French infantry,
fell into our hands.

From this moment the war of the communicating trenches began. There
were the trenches of von Kluck, Eulenburg, and the Salle des Fetes,
without counting innumerable numbered works, giving a feeling of
unheard-of difficulties which our troops had to overcome.

Without a stop, from May 30 to June 17, they fought on this ground,
full of big holes and filled with dead. The combat never ceased,
either day or night. The attacking elements, constantly renewed,
crushed the Germans with hand grenades and demolished their earth
barricades. There was not an hour of truce nor an instant of repose.
The men were under a sun so hot in the trenches that they fought
bareheaded and in their shirtsleeves.

[Illustration: "The Labyrinth"]

On each of these bloody days there were acts of incomparable heroism.
From three sides at a time we made way where the Germans had dug
formidable shelters, ten meters under ground. The enemy artillery
continued firing on our line without interruption.

Our reserves suffered, for in this upturned earth, where every blow
from the pickaxe would disinter a body, one