It will be
simpler to review the disconnected operations by following them
separately in the different districts where they occurred. It will be
observed that in practically every case the Germans assumed the
offensive. In Alsace the French batteries exploded a German munitions
depot on the outskirts of Orbey, southeast of Bonhomme. In the region
of Sondernach, south of Muenster, the Germans captured and occupied a
French listening post, from which they were expelled by
counterattacks. On February 13, 1916, they attempted an infantry
attack, which was halted by French artillery fire. The Germans gained
300 feet of trenches on the 14th. The French took the ground back
again, but were unable to hold it. On the 18th the Germans, after the
usual artillery preparation, directed an infantry attack against the
French position to the north of Largitson, where they penetrated into
the trenches and remained there for some hours until a counterattack
expelled them. In Lorraine, constant artillery duels raged in the
sectors of Reillon and the forest of Parroy. In the Argonne, French
mine operations destroyed the German trenches over a short distance
near Hill 285, northeast of La Chalade. On February 12, 1916, the
French shattered some enemy mine works.

Increased artillery firing at many points in Flanders and northern
France first gave the Allies the impression that the Germans were
planning a new offensive on a large scale against their left wing, in
an attempt to blast a passage through to Calais and Dunkirk. By
February 7, 1916, the Allies were thoroughly awake to the possibility
of a big blow impending somewhere in the west. The sweep through
Serbia had released several hundred thousand men for service
elsewhere. For a month the Germans had been hammering and probing at
Loos, Givenchy, Armentieres, and other points with the evident object
of finding a weak spot. Along the Neuville-Givenchy road especially
the Germans made no fewer than twenty-five determined attacks between
the 1st and 17th of February, 1916. Their later attacks developed more
to the north, near Lievin, where heavy trench fighting occurred, with
no important results either way.

At the beginning of February, 1916, the 525-mile battle front in the
west was held on one side by about 1,250,000 Germans--an average of
2,500 to the mile--as against quite 2,000,000 French, about 1,000,000
British, and 50,000 Belgians. But this superiority in numbers on the
allied