ir object was only to hold firm, at all costs. However,
the generals in charge of this thankless task, Petain and Nivelle,
decided that the best defensive plan consisted in attacking the enemy.
To carry this out, they selected a soldier bronzed on the battlefields
of Central Africa, the Soudan, and Morocco, General Mangin, who
commanded the 5th Division and had already played a distinguished part
in the struggle for Vaux, in March. On May 21 Mangin's division attacked
on the right bank of the Meuse and occupied the quarries of Haudromont;
on the 22d it stormed the German lines for a length of two kilometres,
and took the fort of Douaumont with the exception of one salient.

The Germans replied to this with the greatest energy; for two days and
nights the battle raged round the ruins of the fort. Finally, on the
night of the 24th, two new Bavarian divisions succeeded in getting a
footing in this position, to which the immediate approaches were held by
the French. This vigorous effort alarmed the enemy, and from now on,
until the middle of July, all their strength was focused on the right
bank of the river.

[Sidenote: The bloodiest chapter of the battle.]

[Sidenote: Intense barrage-fire.]

This contest of the right bank began on May 31. It is, perhaps the
bloodiest, the most terrible, chapter of all the operations before
Verdun; for the Germans had determined to capture methodically, one by
one, all the French positions, and get to the city. The first stake of
this game was the possession of the fort of Vaux. Access to it was cut
off from the French by a barrage-fire of unprecedented intensity; at the
same time an assault was made against the trenches flanking the fort,
and also against the defenses of the Fumin woods. On June 4 the enemy
reached the superstructure of the fort and took possession, showering
down hand-grenades and asphyxiating gas on the garrison, which was shut
up in the casemates. After a heroic resistance the defenders succumbed
to thirst and surrendered on June 7.

[Sidenote: Thiaumont changes hands repeatedly.]

Now that Vaux was captured, the German activity was directed against the
ruins of the small fort of Thiaumont, which blocks the way to the Cote
de Froideterre, and against the village of Fleury, dominating the mouth
of a ravine leading to the Meuse. From June 8 to 20, terrible fighting
won for the Germans the possession of Thiaumont; on the 23d, six
divisions, representing a total of a