ected to almost continuous
attacks. At the cost of enormous losses that had not been exceeded
during the war, save at Verdun in the previous year, the Germans had
only gained a slight advance on a front of 2,000 feet, at the foot of
the slope leading to the Chemin-des-Dames between Vauclerc and
Craonne. The French now held all the important heights of the Aisne
which Hindenburg had declared were impregnable.

The German High Command had given orders that the French positions on
the heights must be captured at all hazards. Throughout the night of
July 21, 1917, the high plateaus north of Craonne were shelled by
German guns of the heaviest caliber. An attack was made at daybreak
from Hurtebise to the east of Craonne. The two plateaus to the north,
called the Casemates and Californie positions, are three-cornered in
shape, projecting toward the north and joined by a narrow saddle. The
approach to this is not so abrupt from the north as that to the
plateaus themselves. The French artillery fire broke up the attack
between Hurtebise and the Casemates Plateau before it could develop.

Assemblages of German troops north of Ailette were dispersed with
heavy losses by the concentrated fire from French batteries. German
attacks east of the plateaus led to violent hand-to-hand conflicts in
which the Germans fought with great courage, but were unable to make
gains. Throughout the day the battle raged, the Germans hurling great
masses of men against the French lines, and, thrown back with heavy
losses, again and again renewed the attacks. On the Californie Plateau
after repeated repulses they succeeded in gaining a foothold, but
were only able to hold it for a short time, when the French threw them
back in an assault that laid many a German low.

Since the 10th of the month the British had done little but repel
counterattacks, but they had won a little useful ground east of
Monchy, close to the coast, and around Ypres and Lens theirs and the
German batteries were busy day and night. From prisoners captured by
the British it was learned that the Germans were suffering from the
great wastage of men. Out of one division west of Lens it was stated
that between seventy and eighty men had been buried every day for some
weeks past. The British losses were also considerable, but their guns
did more shooting, and the enemy's casualties were consequently much
heavier. The British continued to hold the upper hand in air combats,
few German