re, but this effort
met with little success. The French at once set to work to recover the
only ground that was of any real importance. The troops in the section
opened a series of counterattacks, and in a very short time the French
grenadiers had gained the upper hand again. The capture of Frise
brought the Germans into a cul-de-sac, for their advance was still
barred by the Somme Canal, behind which there lay a deep marsh.
Maneuvers were quite impossible here, hence the village could not
serve as a base for any further operations. The German gains were
nevertheless considerable, for they took about 3,800 yards of trenches
and nearly 1,300 prisoners, including several British. Spirited mine
fighting marked the first three days of February, 1916. In the
neighborhood of the road from Lille the French artillery fire caused
explosions among the German batteries in the region of Vimy. Between
February 8-9, 1916, the German infantry stormed the first-line French
positions over a stretch of more than 800 yards, capturing 100
prisoners and five machine guns. Small sections of these trenches were
retaken and held.

The German report stated that the French "were unable to reconquer any
part of their lost positions." Five German attacks were made on Hill
140 on February 11, 1916, all but one being repulsed by the intense
fire of the French artillery and infantry. Stubborn fighting,
accompanied by heavy losses, raged about the 14th, by which time the
French had regained a few more trenches. The steady underground
advance of the French sappers drove the Germans back upon their last
bastion, commanding the central plain.

The French trenches gradually crept up the slopes of the hill until
the German commander, the Bavarian Crown Prince, realized that the
next assault was likely to be irresistible and to involve the
abandonment of Lille, Lens, Douai, and the entire front at this point.
A mine explosion west of Hill 140 made a crater fifty yards across. A
steeplechase dash across the open from both sides--French and Germans
met in the crater--a fierce struggle for its possession followed, and
the French won the hole. A furious bombardment from a score of
quick-firing mortars hidden behind La Folie Hill battered the earth
out of shape, and when the Germans occupied the terrain where the
French trenches had been, the "seventy-fives" played such havoc among
them that they were forced to relinquish their hold. To the south of
Frise the