ess
intense. The Scots went about their task in a businesslike way and
routed the garrison and took ten guns and a number of prisoners.

Bullecourt, which had been the scene of some of the hottest fighting
since the offensive began, and where the Australians had repulsed a
dozen strong counterattacks, was in large part occupied by the British
on May 12, 1917. North of the Scarpe, British troops established
themselves in the western part of the village of Roeux, and improved
their positions on the western slopes of Greenland Hill.

Along the Aisne and south of St. Quentin the French continued to
bombard enemy lines. A violent attack made by the Germans on the 12th
against French positions on the Craonne Plateau north of Rheims broke
down under French artillery and machine-gun fire.

The British continued to hold their own in Bullecourt and to improve
their position there and at Cavalry Farm and Roeux. In the three days'
operations the British had captured 700 prisoners, including eleven
officers and a considerable number of guns and war material.

May 14, 1917, was a successful day for the Germans when they captured
Fresnoy. Early in the morning they succeeded by strong counterattacks
in gaining a foothold in the British trenches northeast of the
village. At a later hour the British attacked and regained the lost
ground, but were forced to withdraw when the Germans brought forward
two fresh divisions. The Germans continued their violent attempts to
regain Roeux and that part of Bullecourt which was firmly held by the
British. The struggle around these two places which had been raging
for four weeks grew daily more intense, and the ground around the
British positions was heaped with dead.

All of Roeux was by the 15th in British hands: the chateau with its
great dugouts and gun emplacements, the cemetery from which a large
tunnel ran westward to Mount Pleasant Wood, and the village itself.

After a terrible shell fire during the night of the 15th the Germans
launched a strong assault in dense numbers, and the ruins were strewn
with new dead beside the old dead. Despite the intense fire from
British machine guns some German troops penetrated advanced posts and
barricades and desperate fighting with bomb and bayonet followed. The
British fiercely counterattacked, driving the enemy back, and gained
more ground than they had held before.

At Bullecourt there was the same story to tell. This place, to use the
expressio