d straightened their line a short
distance from Bapaume, their objective point at this time. More than
5,000 German prisoners were taken September 26 and 27.

More Allied gains in the Somme sector were reported in the first week of
October. German counter-attacks were frequent, but lacked the vigor and
success of former efforts on this front. In a joint attack on October
the village of Le Sars was taken and the Allies found themselves within
two miles of Bapaume. General Foch with his French infantry took a
number of German positions near Ablaincourt, south of the Somme, October
14, and held his gains against repeated German attacks. The fighting was
extremely desperate and of a hand-to-hand character. Gas and liquid fire
were used by the Germans, but the new Allied lines were firmly held.
Liquid fire was also used against the British at Thiepval, but without
success.

The Allied attacks on the Somme from October 9 to October 13 were
reckoned in Berlin dispatches as amongst the greatest actions of the
entire Somme battle, the enemy believing that the Allies themselves then
attempted to reach a decision by breaking through the German lines on
the largest possible scale. The losses on both sides during this period
were admittedly very heavy.

On October 18 the town of Sailly-Saillisel fell to the French after hard
fighting and commanding ridges on either side of it were also captured.
Fresh progress brought the French troops to the outskirts of Peronne
next day, and on the 21st the British advanced their lines along a front
of three miles, capturing the Stuff and Regina redoubts and trenches and
taking more than 1,000 prisoners, besides bringing down seventeen enemy
airplanes.

Captain Boelke, Germany's greatest airman, was killed October 28 in a
collision with another airplane during a battle on the western front. He
was 25 years of age, had been wounded several times during the war, and
is credited with having brought down forty Allied airplanes.

The October losses of the British in the Somme campaign were announced
by the War Office to be 107,033, bringing the British total from the
beginning of the campaign to 414,202 men and officers, killed, wounded
and missing.

In the first days of November the principal activity was in the vicinity
of Sailly. The Germans effected a successful counter-attack on November
6, recapturing some of the ground won by the Allies, with 400 prisoners,
300 of them French. Next day, h