ce
was started by the troops on the lower blade of the shears, and close
fighting began, with the Germans intrenched in their concreted cellars,
which were linked up with barbed wire and filled with hundreds of
machine guns. The capture of the entire city of Lens was then only a
matter of time, as Hill 70 insured the holding of the ground won by
the Canadians, German reinforcements being placed under the range of
irresistible fire from that dominating height. Among the prisoners taken
in the attack were many German lads apparently not more than 17 years of
age.

The German commander, Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, made frantic efforts
to recapture the lost positions around Lens. The taking of Hill
stirred the German high command as nothing else had done on the western
front for many months, and a grim battle was waged for several days.
On August 16 the enemy came on ten separate times, but they seldom got
close enough to the Canadians for fighting with bayonet or bomb. The
Prussian Guards participated in the counter-attacks and were subjected
to a terrible concentrated fire from the British artillery and Canadian
machine guns. Their losses were frightful and all German efforts to
retake Hill 70 came to naught, while their hold on the central portion
of the mining city became most precarious, as the Canadians consolidated
the advantageous positions their valor had finally won.

RUSSIAN VICTORIES AND COLLAPSE

After the Russian revolution in March, 1917, the military affairs of the
new nation entered upon a curious phase. At first the Russian army made
a feint to advance on Pinsk, to cover the actual operations resumed
in the month of July against Lemberg. This latter front extended for
eighteen and a half miles and was held by troops known as "Regiments
July First." These troops, reinvigorated by the consciousness of
political liberty, confounded German military prophets by the magnitude
and extent of the offensive which they began. Led by Alexander Kerensky,
the revolutionary minister of war, and observed by American army
officers, they forced the Teutons to evacuate Brzezany, and then
captured many important positions, including terrain west and south of
Halicz and strongly-defended positions northwest of Stanislau. On July
11 Halicz was taken, thus smashing the Austro-German front between
Brzezany and the Carpathians.

This Russian operation broadened by mid-July, so that it extended from
the Gulf of Riga to the Ro