a total of ninety-nine battalions.
Reckoning the corresponding artillery and pioneer formations, this
would represent 115,000 men directly engaged. The losses due to the
artillery preparation and the first attacks were such that from
September 25 to October 15, 1915, the German General Staff was
compelled to renew its effectives almost in their entirety by sending
out ninety-three fresh battalions. It is assumed that the units
engaged on September 25-26, 1915, suffered losses amounting to from
sixty to eighty per cent (even more for certain corps which had
entirely disappeared). The new units brought into line for the
counterattacks, and subjected in connection with these to an incessant
bombardment, lost fifty per cent of their effectives, if not more.
Hence it would be hardly overstating the case to set down 140,000 men
as the sum of the German losses in Champagne. It must also be taken
into account that of this number the proportion of slightly wounded
men able to recuperate quickly and return to the front was, in the
case of the Germans, very much below the average proportion of other
engagements, for they were unable to collect their wounded. Thus
nearly the whole of the troops defending the first position fell into
French hands.

After recounting the losses of one side, let us turn to analyze the
gains of the other. The French had penetrated the German lines on a
front of over fifteen miles, and to a depth of two and a half miles in
some places, between Auberive and Ville-sur-Tourbe. The territorial
gains may be thus summarized: The troops of the Republic had scaled
the whole of the glacis of the Epine de Vedegrange; they occupied the
ridge of the hollow at Souain; debouched in the opening to the north
of Perthes to the slopes of Hill 195 and as far as the Butte de
Tahure; carried the western bastions of the curtain of le Mesnil;
advanced as far as Maisons de Champagne and took by assault the "hand"
of Massiges. The territory they had reconquered from the invaders
represented an area of about forty square kilometers. On and from
October 7, 1915, they beat back the furious efforts of the Germans to
regain the lost ground. Nevertheless, in spite of the utmost
resolution on the part of commanders, and of valor on the part of the
French troops, the Germans were not completely overthrown, and the
annihilating results expected from the action of the mass of troops
and guns employed were not attained. It was a victory,