d orders for this section to hold on to the last, that it was to
be retained at all costs. The road to the Douai plain was to be barred
to the French, who had to be held back behind the advanced works of
the Artois plateau. In May, 1915, the problem was to prevent the
French setting foot on the summits of Notre Dame de Lorette and of the
Topart Mill. The Germans sacrificed many thousands of men with this
object, but the French nevertheless made themselves masters of the
heights which the Germans considered of capital importance, and
dislodged them from Carency and Ablain-St. Nazaire. There remained
only one stage to cover--the Souchez Valley--to reach the last crest
which dominated the whole country to the east, and beyond which the
ground is flat. This task had been accomplished during the last few
days of September and the beginning of October. Souchez and its
advanced bastion, the Chateau Carleul, had been made into a formidable
fortification by the changing of the course of the Carency streams.
The Germans had transformed the marshy ground to the southeast of this
front into a perfect swamp, which was regarded as impassable. The
German batteries posted at Angres were able to enfilade the valley on
the north. From behind the crest of Hill 119 to Hill 140, which were
covered with trenches connected by a network of communication
trenches, many batteries were engaged against the French in the
district of Notre Dame de Lorette, Ablain-St. Nazaire and Carency. To
the north of Souchez the German trenches were still clinging to the
Notre Dame de Lorette slope.

The attack of September 25, 1915, was to overcome all these obstacles.
The artillery preparation, which lasted five days, was so skillfully
handled that, even before it was finished, many German deserters came
into the French lines declaring that they had had enough. The infantry
attack was delivered at noon on September 25, 1915, and with one rush
the French troops reached the objectives which had been marked out for
them--the chateau and grounds of Carleul and the islet south of
Souchez. Meanwhile, other detachments carried the cemetery and forced
their way to the first slopes of Hill 119. On the left the French
troops advanced down the slopes of Notre Dame de Lorette and made a
dash at the Hache Wood, the western outskirts of which they reached
twenty minutes after the attack began. The capture of the wood has
already been described. The French attack on the right