there was
active artillery fighting throughout the day. In the region between
the Miette and the Aisne the Germans attacked three French posts, but
were driven off by the French artillery fire.

The British now took the offensive and advanced their line on a
600-yard front south of Ypres, near Hollebeke, and continued to exert
pressure on the German lines. On the 7th a further push forward was
made east of Wytschaete in Belgium.

The French sector of the Chemin-des-Dames to the south of Filain was
menaced at all times because it was dominated by the ancient fort of
Malmaison in possession of the enemy. In the early morning of July 9,
1917, the Germans began an intense bombardment of this sector and then
attempted to rush ten or twelve infantry battalions into the French
positions. A brigade of the famous Chasseurs-a-pied holding the line
were forced back by overwhelming numbers. The Germans evidently
thought that success was certain, for they had brought with them
quantities of barbed wire, boxes of grenades, and trench mortars, and
everything that was needed to organize the position whose capture
would give them the command of a considerable section of
Chemin-des-Dames.

They failed, however, to consider the indomitable French spirit. The
Chasseurs had only retreated a short distance when they gathered
together engineers and reservists who had been working on roads in the
rear and rushed back, and by a series of brilliant counterattacks
ejected or killed most of the Germans in spite of their heroic
resistance, capturing large quantities of their war material and
reoccupying the line almost to its fullest extent.

The Germans having obtained reenforcements, fought furiously to regain
the lost position, but the French elated by their success redoubled
their efforts to destroy the enemy and the shell craters, and
communication trenches were soon encumbered with German dead. The
French losses in the fighting here were severe, but as they occupied
safer positions the Germans' casualties were far greater. The fighting
was so intense throughout the action that very few prisoners were
taken by either side. A group of French soldiers who had been made
prisoners and brought to the German second line attacked their guard
and fled to their own lines, escaping without hurt the intense fire
directed against them.

On this date, July 10, 1917, the Germans delivered a smashing blow
against the British lines north of Nieuport o