during the Hun advance, many of the German divisions engaged in the
drive were literally cut to pieces. The 88th division was reported by
prisoners to be practically annihilated. The same prisoners, taken in
counter-attacks, expressed the utmost surprise at the relatively small
number of dead whom they had found in the British and French trenches
as they advanced. They had been informed by their officers that the
offensive would be over in eight days, and that a complete victory over
the Allies would be won within three or four weeks.

GERMAN DRIVE IS HALTED

The eighth day of the German offensive, far from finding the Huns
victorious, resulted in tremendous attacks by the Germans being stopped
by the unbeatable British, while the French won a brilliant victory at
the south of the line. Meanwhile the Germans had begun another attack in
the Flanders sector, with the object of wresting from the British the
control of Messines Ridge, which dominated the lowlands of Flanders and
had been so gallantly won by the Canadians in the previous year. They
gained a partial footing on the ridge, but the greater part of it was
grimly held, and all efforts of the enemy to advance through Ypres
towards the Channel ports were frustrated.

Another sector was added to the north end of the battle line on the
eighth day, March 28, when the Germans attacked heavily on both sides of
the River Scarpe toward Arras. Here some of the fiercest fighting of
the offensive soon developed, but the ground gained by the Germans was
insignificant. Daily, however, they claimed to have captured thousands
of Allied troops and hundreds of guns; while, on the other hand,
enormously long ambulance trains were reported passing through Belgium
with the German wounded, the hospitals in northern France not having
sufficient accommodation for the sufferers. On every battlefield of the
100-mile front--for the fighting now covered that enormous stretch of
territory, in two sections, north of La Bassee and south of Arras--the
German dead lay literally in heaps.

On March 29, the ninth day of the great battle in France, the German
drive was practically halted, and both British and French reports noted
a decrease of the fighting, enemy activity being manifested only by
local attacks all along the front, which was being strengthened each day
by the arrival of Allied reinforcements.

PARIS BOMBARDED AT LONG RANGE

Soon after the great offensive opened, the city of Pa