and which the Germans will eventually be forced to
evacuate. Ground was also gained by the British between Loos and Lens,
and every attempt made by the Germans to regain lost positions was
repulsed.

On the French front in western Champagne the Germans on the 21st made
desperate efforts to recapture the positions on the heights which they
had lost in the previous week. Mont Haut, the dominating position in
this region, was the principal objective against which they launched
repeated attacks, all of which came to naught. There were numerous
minor operations on the Rheims-Soissons front during the night of the
21st. Rheims was repeatedly bombarded, the Germans paying particular
attention to the cathedral, which received further damage from
shells.

What might be termed the second phase of the battle of Arras was begun
in the morning of April 23, 1917, when the British resumed the
offensive. At 5 o'clock in the morning the British advance started
east of Arras on a front of about eight miles, capturing strong
positions and the villages of Gavrelle and Guemappe. The occupation of
these places and of strongholds south of Gavrelle as far as the river
Scarpe broke the so-called Oppy line, defending the Hindenburg
positions before Douai. The British were successful in clearing the
enemy out of the neighborhood of Monchy, which commands the region for
forty miles. The Germans appreciating the value of this position had
launched twenty counterattacks against it in the ten previous days. It
proved to them the bloodiest spot in all this war-ravaged region, and
when the British advanced at early dawn on the 23d, thousands of dead
in field-gray uniforms littered the approaches to the position. During
the day the British took over 1,500 prisoners.

On this date, April 23, 1917, the Germans attacked the French lines in
Belgium at several points in the course. Bodies of Germans succeeded
in penetrating some French advanced positions, but after spirited
hand-to-hand struggles were killed, captured, or driven off. In most
cases the Germans never got in touch with the French, but were rolled
back by the concentrated fire of the French artillery. Fighting
continued in the Champagne, where the Germans renewed again and again
their efforts to capture the new French positions on Mont Haut.

On the second day of the offensive the British had made gains east of
Monchy, and had pushed on between that village and the river Sensee to
within a