0, 1916, as a result
of the continuous fighting north of Ypres, the British had lost on the
Yser Canal what the German official report described as a position 350
meters long, and the British statement as "an unimportant advanced
post." The Germans took some prisoners and repelled several day and
night attacks by the British to recover the ground.

In Champagne, uninterrupted artillery actions continued apparently
without much advantage to either side. The German works north of
Souain were particularly visited. On February 5, 1916, the French
bombarded the German works on the plateau of Navarin, wrecking
trenches and blowing up several munition depots. Some reservoirs of
suffocating gas were also demolished, releasing the poisonous fumes,
which the wind blew back across the German lines. On the 13th the
French were able to report a further success northeast of the Butte du
Mesnil, where they took some 300 yards of German trenches. A
counterattack by night was also repulsed, the Germans losing
sixty-five prisoners. They succeeded, though, in penetrating a small
salient of the French line between the road from Navarin and that of
the St. Souplet. They also captured, on the 12th, some sections of
advanced trenches between Tahure and Somme-Py, gaining more than 700
yards of front.

In the Vosges a similar series of local engagements occupied the
combatants. Artillery exchanges played the chief part in the
operations. Three big shells from a German long-range gun fell in the
fortress town of Belfort and its environs on February 8, 1916. The
French replied by bombarding the German cantonments at Stosswier,
northwest of Muenster, Hirtzbach, south of Altkirch, and the military
establishments at Dornach, near Muehlhausen. On the 11th ten more heavy
shells fell about Belfort. North of Wissembach, east of St. Die, a
German infantry charge met with a withering fire and was stopped
before it reached the first line.

While all the fighting just described was in progress, matters were
comparatively on a peace footing in the Argonne Forest. The French and
Germans engaged in mine operations, smashing up inconsiderable pieces
of each other's trenches and mine works. But it was here that affairs
of great historic import, perhaps the mightiest event of the war, were
in the making.

In an interview given to the editor of the "Secolo" of Milan, at the
end of January, 1916, Mr. Lloyd-George, the British Minister of
Munitions, said: "We