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The valley of the Lys is to the north of the Lorette ridge. To the east the land descends to the long, narrow valley in which is the highway between Arras and Bethune. La Targette and Souchez are along the way. Again the land rolls upward to the hills of Vimy with the Lens-Arras highway beyond them. The Teutons held a salient in this region at the beginning of May, 1915.
The preliminary work of the artillery was continued for three hours, accompanied by the plaudits of the French infantrymen. Then the infantry were sent to take the wrecks of what had been the pride of the German engineers. They took what was still in existence at La Targette, and the important crossroads there. They waged a fierce fight in and around the village of Neuville St.
The line which bounded this salient ran east of Loos over the Bethune-Lens road, east of Aix-Noulette, and appeared on the Lorette plateau considerably to the west of its tallest spur, where was situated the Chapel of Our Lady; running out to the prow of the salient, it took in Albain; and then proceeded to Carency; bending closely, it ran east of the Bois de Berthonval, taking in La Targette and the Arras-Bethune highway.
They were rewarded by the comparative ease with which their initial successes were secured. Barbed wire and earthen parapets were blown to pieces before the infantry attacked and in an hour and a half coveted two and a half miles. La Targette and the White Work were captured and an entrance forced into Neuville St. Vaast.
Their weapon is a Targette, a Curtilase, and a Bowe. Their office is to fortifie the campe, and to assaulte cities. Thei are in nombre aboue twentie thousande. The seconde sorte are called Asappi, and are all footemen of light harnesse, weaponed with swearde, target, and a kinde of long Iauelines, wherewith thei slea the horses of their enemies, in the skirmishe and battaile.
Those were relics of a battle on May 9th, a year before, when swarms of boys, of the '16 class, boys of eighteen, the flower of French youth, rushed forward from the crossroads at La Targette, a few hundred yards away, to capture these ruins of Neuville St.-Vaast. They captured them, and it cost them seven thousand in killed and wounded at least three thousand dead.
Lens was protected by a bulge in the German front which ran round by Grenay, Aix-Noulette, Notre Dame de Lorette, Ablain, and Carency to the north-west of Arras, and then south-eastwards by La Targette, Écurie, and Roclincourt.
Early in 1915 the French line North of Arras had run through la Targette, Carency and over the East end of the Lorette heights to Aix Noulette. In May our allies made their first attack here and, driving the Boche from the heights, gained possession, after terrific fighting, of Ablain St. Nazaire, Souchez and Neuville St. Vaast.
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