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She walked steadily along the whole front of the Schwaben and then jumped down into her trench. Many thought at the time that she was a man masquerading for a bet, but long afterwards, when our men took the Schwaben, they found her lying in the ruins dead. They buried her there, up on the top of the hill. God alone knows who she was and what she was doing there.
Other places on the line, such as the Leipzig, the Schwaben, and the trenches near Hamel, were strong, because they could be supported by works behind them or on their flanks. Fricourt was strong in itself, like Gommecourt. It was perhaps the only place in the field of which it could be said that it was as strong as Gommecourt.
Clair Deville, who were wounded in fighting in the Somme region, continued to hold their commands and to direct the action of the French troops under them. Early in the morning of October 21, 1916, German troops in considerable force attacked the Schwaben Redoubt north of Thiepval occupied by the British, and at several points succeeded in entering the trenches.
By another attack they captured the village of Génermont and the sugar refinery to the northeast of Ablaincourt. In these two attacks nearly 1,000 prisoners were taken, including seventeen officers. On the same date British forces in the neighborhood of the Stuff Redoubt and Schwaben Redoubt cleared two lines of German communication trenches for a distance of nearly 200 yards.
All along that front trench of the Schwaben, lying on the parapet, half buried in the mud, are the belts of machine guns, still full of cartridges. There were many machine guns on that earthen wall last year.
Mesnil stands out among its trees to the left; to the right is this shattered stretch of wood, with a valley beyond it, and a rather big, steep, green hill topped by a few trees beyond the valley. The jut of the Leipzig shuts out the view to the flanks, so that one can see little more than this. The Leipzig, itself, like the Schwaben, is a hawk's nest or eyrie.
And the 40,000 wend steadily forward through Schwaben eastward, till they can join Karl Albert Kur-Baiern, who is Generalissimo, or has the name of such. They march in Seven Divisions. To Donauworth is 250 miles; to Passau will be 180 more: five or six long weeks of marching. But after Donauworth they are to go, the Infantry of them are, in boats; Horse, under Saxe, marching parallel.
The Germans were able in this respite to bring up new divisions, fresh and strong enough to make heavy counter attacks in the Stuff and Schwaben and Regina trenches, and to hold the lines more securely for a time, while great digging was done farther back at Bapaume and the next line of defense.
At this time the extreme British left was inactive, in the circumstances it seemed doubtful that a new attack would be profitable, so what was left of the advanced guard of the Ulster Division retired from the Schwaben Redoubt to its original line.
Even now its lower reach between a steep bank of scrub and Thiepval Wood is as lovely as a place can be after the passing of a cyclone. Its upper reach, which makes the eastern boundary of the Schwaben, is as ghastly a scene of smash as the world can show. It is nothing but a collection of irregular pools dug by big shells during months of battle.