en stood silently at attention, while their comrades on either
side of them, and yet other troops farther away down the road, were
raising their caps on their bayonets and cheering with true British
lustiness. Some could catch a glimpse of the king as his car dashed
swiftly by. He was sitting half-bent in the corner of the vehicle, and
his face wore a faint smile of acknowledgment. The king's injuries
proved to be worse than was at first supposed, necessitating his
removal to London on a stretcher.

CHAPTER XII

OPERATIONS IN CHAMPAGNE AND ARTOIS--PREPARATIONS FOR WINTER CAMPAIGN

By the middle of October operations on the western front centralized
almost entirely in the Champagne and Artois districts, where the
Germans, fully appreciating the menace to their lines created by the
results of the allied offensive, sought by continuous violent
counterattacks to recover the territory from which they had been
dislodged and to prevent the Allies from consolidating and
strengthening their gains. Their attacks in the Artois fell chiefly
between Hulluch and Hill 70, and southeast of Givenchy, against the
heights of Petit Vimy. The Germans succeeded in retaking small
sections of first-line trenches, but lost some of their new trenches
in return. Whereas the Allies held practically all they had gained,
the Germans were considerably the losers by the transaction. The
British attempted to continue their offensive by driving between Loos
and Hulluch, the most important and at the same time the most
dangerous section on the British front. By steadily forging ahead
southeast of Loos toward Hill 70, the British were driving a wedge
into the German line and creating a perilous salient around the town
of Angres as the center. To obviate the danger from counterattacks
against the sides of the salient, the British endeavored to flatten
out the point of the wedge by capturing more ground north of Hill 70
toward Hulluch. To some extent the plan succeeded; they advanced east
of the Lens-La Bassee road for about 500 yards, an apparently
insignificant profit, but it had the effect of strengthening the
British position.

Uninterrupted fighting in Champagne had made little difference to
either side, save that the French had managed to straighten out their
line somewhat, though they were by no means nearer to their desired
goal--the Challerange-Bazancourt railway. If that could be taken, the
Germans facing them would be cut off from th