s exhausted.]

"SEPTEMBER 25, 11.45.

"I urgently beg for reinforcements; the men are
dying from fatigue and want of sleep. I have no
news of the battalion."

The time fixed for all the attacks on the Champagne front was a
quarter-past nine in the morning. There was no hesitation. At the time
mentioned the troops came out of the trenches with the aid of steps or
scaling ladders and drew up in line before making a rush at the German
trenches.

The operation was rapidly effected. The objective was at an average
distance of two hundred metres; this was covered without serious losses.
The Germans were nearly everywhere surprised, and their defensive fire
was not opened until after the invading tide of the attackers had passed
by.

[Sidenote: First German trench penetrated.]

Over the whole attacking front our troops penetrated into the first
German trench. But subsequently the progress was no longer uniform.
While certain units continued their forward movement with extreme
rapidity, others came up against machine guns still in action and either
stopped or advanced only with difficulty. Some centres of the German
resistance maintained their position for several hours and even for
several days.

[Sidenote: Outline of advance in Champagne.]

[Sidenote: The battle a series of assaults.]

A line showing the different stages of our advance in Champagne would
assume a curiously winding outline, and would reveal on the one hand the
defensive power of an adversary resolved to stick to the ground at all
costs and on the other the victorious continuity of the efforts of our
troops in this hand-to-hand struggle. The battle of Champagne must be
considered in the light of a series of assaults, executed at the same
moment, in parallel or convergent directions and having for their object
either the capture or the hemming in of the first German position, the
units being instructed to reform in a continuous line before the second
position.

[Sidenote: Unity of the action.]

In order to understand the development, the terrain must be divided into
several sectors, in each of which the operations, although closely
co-ordinated, assumed, as a consequence either of the nature of the
ground or of the peculiarities of the enemy defences, a different
character. The unity of the action was nevertheless ensured by the
simultaneity of the rush, which carried all the troops beyon