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At Herbebois and Ornes and on to Bezonvaux there was hand-to-hand fighting of the most desperate nature, while at Maucourt an advance position held by the French terrific execution was done to the masses of troops hurled forward by the Germans. Here masked French quick-firing guns caught German columns of attack, twenty men abreast and hundreds deep, at close range, and blew them into eternity.
The French center included the Bois de la Ville, Herbebois, and Ornes, with the woods of Beaumont, La Wavrille, Les Fosses, Le Chaume, and Les Caurières as the second position. The French right included Maucourt, Mogeville, the Haytes-Charrières Wood, and Fromezey, with a second position covering Bezonvaux, Grand-Chena, and Dieppe.
At Vacherauville lying close to the eastern bank of the river the next outcrop on the banks of the Meuse is the Côte de Talou, and, still east of it, the Côte du Poivre, while a little farther east, in the neighbourhood of Louvemont, the heights sweep round abruptly to the south to Douaumont, and then to Vaux, towards which those outlying parties of French who had held on so stubbornly to Herbebois, Ornes, and Maucourt, and had retired towards Bezonvaux, were now being driven by the enemy.
In each small sector of the six-mile northward bulge of the Verdun salient the work of destruction was done with surprising quickness. "After the line from Brabant to Haumont was smashed, the main fire power was directed against the other end of the bow at Herbebois, Ornes, and Maucourt.
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