oughout the day with hardly an interval. As if in
anticipation of the coming onslaught the German artillery had also
raised the key of its fire to a higher pitch several days before.

Simultaneously with the attack in Champagne, Sir John French assumed
the offensive on the British front. The main British attack was
directed in the neighborhood of Lens, against Prince Rupprecht of
Bavaria. While the French troops were rushing the German first line in
Champagne, the British troops executed a precisely similar movement
south of La Bassee Canal to the east of Grenay and Vermelles. With the
first rush they captured the German trenches on a front of five miles,
penetrating the lines in some places to a distance of 4,000 yards.
They conquered the western outskirts of Hulluch, the village of Loos,
with the mining works around it, and Hill 70. They lost the quarries
northwest of Hulluch again, but retook them on the following day.
Other attacks were made north of the La Bassee Canal, which drew
strong German reserves toward these points of the lines, where hard
fighting occurred throughout the day with fluctuating success. The
British also made another attack on Hooge on either side of the Menin
road. The assault north of the road yielded the Bellewaarde Farm and
ridge, but the Germans subsequently recaptured this part. South of the
road the attack gained about 600 yards of German trench. The British
took 2,600 prisoners, eighteen guns and thirty machine guns in the
first day. The Fourth British Army Corps, under Sir Henry Rawlinson,
had thus taken Loos and overrun Hill 70, a mile to the east, and even
penetrated to Cite St. Auguste. The Fifth Corps, under Sir Hubert
Gough, on the left, had stormed the quarries, taken Cite St. Elie, and
occupied a portion of the village of Haisnes. But the First Army, in
its attack, had not kept adequate reserves on hand; and those at first
at the disposal of the general in chief, which had to serve the whole
front and to be kept in hand in case of unexpected events, came up too
late to enable the British to hold and consolidate all the ground they
had won. The Ypres-Arras sector had been more formidably fortified
than any other portion of the German front. It is an extremely thickly
populated neighborhood, and the terrain is full of difficulties. It
could not be expected that an advance here, at least from the outset,
could be as rapid as that in Champagne. Whereas in the latter it was a
fight