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Several determined attempts were made by the Germans to recapture the positions lost at Schratzmannele and Reichsackerkopf, but the French artillery fire proved too strong.
Between Schratzmannele and Barrenkopf there was a German blockhouse with cement walls ten feet thick. This was surrounded with barbed-wire entanglements and chevaux-de-frise. The French delivered their first attack on July 20, 1915. After a violent bombardment of ten hours, chasseur battalions stormed the German positions, capturing the Linge summit to the left and the Barren to the right.
On the Lingekopf-Barrenkopf front the French were driven out of a first-line trench on the Schratzmannele, but they recovered most of the ground by a counterattack. Similarly on the summit of the Hartmannsweilerkopf, where the Germans had also obtained a footing in the French trenches, they were subsequently ejected again. These trenches had been captured with the aid of blazing liquids. Quentin.
According to the French official reports, these operations resulted in the capture of the peaks named Lingekopf, Schratzmannele and Barrenkopf. The German official statement of September 2, 1915, however, claimed that the first and last of these had been recaptured.
The Germans, however, firmly retained their hold on Schratzmannele. They caught the exposed French flanks with a stream of machine-gun fire and forced the chasseurs to retire to sheltered positions lower down the slopes. Two days later the French made another attack, and for quite a month, judging from the contradictory "official" reports, these peaks changed hands about twice a week.
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