but an
indecisive one.

On October 5, 1915, General Joffre issued the following manifesto from
Grand Headquarters:

"The Commander in Chief addresses to the troops under his orders the
expression of his profound satisfaction at the results obtained up to
the present day by the attacks. Twenty-five thousand prisoners, three
hundred and fifty guns, a quantity of material which it has not yet
been possible to gauge, are the trophies of a victory the echo of
which throughout Europe indicates its importance.

"The sacrifices willingly made have not been in vain. All have been
able to take part in the common task. The present is a sure guarantee
to us of the future.

"The Commander in Chief is proud to command the finest troops France
has ever known."

CHAPTER IX

THE BRITISH FRONT IN ARTOIS

Ever since August 16, 1915, a persistent and almost continuous
bombardment of the German lines had been carried out by the French
and, to a less extent, by the British and Belgian artillery. The
allied gunners appear to have distributed their favors quite
impartially. There was nothing in the action taken to direct attention
to one sector more than to another. The Vosges, the Meurthe and
Moselle, Lorraine and the Woevre, the Argonne, Champagne, the Aisne,
the Somme, the Arras sector, Ypres and the Yser, and the Belgian coast
where the British navy had joined in, all were subjected to a heavy,
deliberate and effective fire from guns of all calibers. As in
Champagne, the rate of fire quickened up on September 22, 1915. Great
concentrations of guns had been made at various points, and enormous
quantities of shells had been collected in readiness for the attack.
But the artillery preparation which immediately preceded that attack
in the west was of a most terrific description. Shortly after midnight
and in the early hours of Saturday morning, September 25, 1915, the
German positions were treated to a bombardment that had rarely been
equaled in violence. From the Yser Canal down to the end of the French
line the Allies' guns took up the note, and soon the whole of the
allied line was thundering and reechoing with the infernal racket. The
German lines became smothered in dust and smoke, their parapets simply
melted away, their barbed-wire entanglements disappeared. Those
sleeping thirty or forty miles away were awakened in the night by the
dull rumbling. The whole atmosphere was choked with the noise, and so
it continued thr