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Into those calm army reports association could read many indications: the telling fact that the German losses in being pressed off the Ridge were as great if not greater than the British, their sufferings worse under a heavier deluge of shell fire, the increased skill of the offensive and the failure of German counter-attacks after each advance.
It was the Guernsey Light Infantry which recovered this village twice by counter-attacks, and which maintained the southern defences of Masnières for two days against seven German attacks with superior forces and very superior artillery.
The German General Staff was getting flurried, grabbing at battalions from other parts of the line, disorganizing its divisions under the urgent need of flinging in men to stop this rot in the lines, ordering counter-attacks which were without any chance of success, so that thin waves of men came out into the open, as I saw them several times, to be swept down by scythes of bullets which cut them clean to the earth.
Enemy shelling now became intense, followed up by counter-attacks, all of which were repulsed. The intention had been that the Somersets should capture Rafat first and then take Arara, the main objective of these operations. The capture of Three Bushes Hill was necessary to secure Arara and Rafat from reverse fire.
During August and the early part of September this fighting consisted, for the most part, of attempts by the Belgian field army to harass the enemy and to threaten his lines of communication and of counter-attacks by the Germans, during which Aerschot, Malines, Sempst, and Termonde repeatedly changed hands.
By 3 o'clock the whole battalion was in the village, using rifle and bayonet in the road scarcely more than a couple of yards wide, and bombing the enemy out of native mud and stone houses and caves. Two officers and fifteen unwounded men were taken prisoners with three machine guns, but before any consolidation could be done the Turks began a series of counter-attacks which lasted all day.
The last of the ambulance camels, which were evacuating wounded from the regimental aid post had not crossed the Ballut Ridge and got out of sight before dawn, and were shelled accordingly. The enemy delivered counter-attacks again in the night; these also were repulsed. Next morning he changed his tactics.
As the year 1917 closed there was a succession of German attacks and counter-attacks by the British in the Cambrai sector, the British lines holding firmly at all points and continuing to hold during the winter. The British War Office issued the following statement of captures and losses during 1917: Captures prisoners on all fronts, 114,544; guns, 781. Losses prisoners, 28,379; guns, 166.
It enables the nation which possesses it to attack its foes where it pleases and where they seem to be most vulnerable. At the same time it gives to its possessor security against serious counter-attacks, and affords to his maritime commerce the most efficient protection that can be devised. It is, in fact, the main object of naval warfare.
If the curtain of shell-fire which has preceded the advancing battalion to its objective can be "lifted" at the right moment and put down again, with precision, upon a certain vital zone beyond the captured line, counter-attacks can be broken up and the line held. But the Artillery lives a long way sometimes miles in rear.
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