avine which ran
down toward Tout Vent. Four companies of the Eighty-sixth Regiment had
held the salient.

On June 5, 1915, the reserve troops were taken from the Tout Vent
ravine for reenforcements. Their places were occupied then by other
German troops. The French artillery bombarded the fort at the peak of
the salient, and all of the trenches and defenses of the Germans in
that neighborhood and the French infantry kept up a rifle and
machine-gun fire which was an aid in preventing the Germans from
repairing the damage done their defenses. The bombardment continued
all day and all night and increased in volume and intensity on the
morning of June 6, 1915. Then it was continued intermittently. A mine
under the fort at the peak of the salient blew up. The Germans who
sought refuge in their dugouts found them unavailing. The shells had
blown the roofs from those places of supposed safety. In many
instances their occupants had been buried in the debris and
suffocated. The French artillery lengthened its range and made a
curtain of fire between the Germans on the front and the German
supports in the rear. Then the French infantry charged. The men had
dispensed with knapsack that they might not be hampered with
unnecessary weight. All had three rations and two hundred and fifty
rounds of ammunition. They were also provided with two hand grenades
and a sack. The last was to be filled with earth. The filled sacks
were sufficient to form breastworks with which any place taken might
be held. With a cheer the French infantry ran across the two hundred
yards between the two lines. The German infantry's nerves had been so
badly shaken by the bombardment that only a scattering fire, badly
directed, greeted the French. It was but the work of minutes to take
the first line of German trenches. The two hundred and fifty survivors
of two German battalions were made prisoners. The German reserves in
the ravine on the Tout Vent farm made a dash to aid their fire line;
but the French artillery shells accounted for them before the reserves
ever reached those whom they would have relieved. Thus in less than an
hour 2,000 Germans were put out of the fight. The French who had been
selected for this work included Bretons, Zouaves, and Chasseurs.

The Zouaves then made a dash for the ravine on the Tout Vent front.
There they came upon a field work equipped with three guns. This work
was protected by wire entanglements. The German artillerymen r