a great assault.
Before the Germans could make ready for the attack the French
artillery showered their trenches and concentration points with
shells, and the assaulting columns that were in the act of assembling
were scattered in disorder. The French fire was so intense that the
Germans who occupied the first line of trenches were unable to leave
them.

Artillery duels continued for several days, marked on the 15th by a
spirited attack made by the French on the German trenches at
Douaumont, during which they took several hundred prisoners and
wrested from the enemy some positions.

The German bombardment now reached the highest pitch of intensity, and
the sector between Bras on the Meuse and Douaumont was swept by a
storm of fire. Poivre (or Pepper) Hill, Haudremont, and Chaufour Wood
especially, were subjected to such destruction that old landmarks were
wiped out as by magic, and the very face of nature was changed and
distorted.

Having, as they believed, made the way clear for advance, the Germans
launched an attack in great force. It was estimated that the attacking
mass numbered 35,000 men. Believing that their guns had so crushed the
French forces that they would be unable to present any serious
defense, the German hordes swept on to attack on a front of about
three miles. Their reception was hardly what had been anticipated.
Great ragged gaps were torn in their formations as the French brought
rifles, machine guns, and heavy artillery into play. Their dead lay in
heaps on the ground, and along the whole front they were only able on
the right to penetrate a French trench south of Chaufour Wood. The
greater part of this was subsequently won back by their opponents in a
counterattack. On the 19th a German infantry assault launched against
Eparges failed.

There was a lull in the fighting during most of the day of April 28,
1916, but in the twilight the Germans attacked at points between
Douaumont and Vaux and west of Thiaumont, but were forced back by the
French artillery.

During the following day the Germans incessantly bombarded French
positions and made a futile attack. On the 30th the French forces
north of Mort Homme were on the offensive, and carried a German
trench. East of Mort Homme on the Cumieres front on the same day they
captured from the Germans 1,000 meters of trenches along a depth
varying from 300 to 600 meters.

The Germans reattacked almost immediately with two of their most
famous cor