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The 61st Division was left holding a line of snow-bound trenches between Gonnelieu and La Vacquerie, consisting of fragments both of the Hindenburg Line, the old German front line, and our own as it stood before the Cambrai battle opened. Except in the 184th Brigade the casualties suffered by the Division during the heavy German counter-attacks had been heavier than those at Ypres.
Finally, to complete the tableau satisfactorily, it appears that this year at Gonnelieu, at the height of the dancing, half a dozen gendarmes rushed upon the scene, causing a general stampede among the disciples of the onion and a hasty adjournment of the festival.
Fighting had slackened when the Battalion went into the line in front of Gonnelieu. The trenches there ran oddly between derelict tanks, light railways, and dismantled huts; in No-Man's-Land lay several batteries of our guns. On December 7 the 183rd Brigade relieved the Battalion, which moved back to tents in Havrincourt Wood. It was bitter!
Meanwhile the Third Army captured Masnières and penetrated into the western outskirts of Cambrai while the Canadians threatened to outflank it on the north. On the 30th the Germans had to withdraw their centre at Villers Guislain and Gonnelieu, while the Fourth Army extended its gains southwards by the capture of Thorigny; and, thus menaced, the Germans had to abandon St.
Every year, between June 24th and July 2d, the inhabitants of the two neighboring villages of Gouzeaucourt and Gonnelieu perform the ceremony of "turning the onion" that is to say, they dance in a circle, joining hands, on the village green of one or the other hamlet.
Their method was as unexpected as our own, and where it was applied against our right it was almost as successful. From Bonavis south to Vendhuille all our gains were lost, and within an hour and a half the Germans had pierced the line we had held since April and captured Gonnelieu, Villers-Guislain, and Gouzeaucourt.
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