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With this accomplished the German support line from Drocourt to Queant would be seriously endangered. The French lines on the Chemin-des-Dames north of the Aisne continued to be subjected to attack, the Germans throwing great masses of troops against the positions on the heights.
Their sons are gaining their own living; one daughter is married, the others are arriving at the marriageable age. One day the Hun sweeps down on them. The sons escape to join the French army; the girls and their parents stay behind to guard their property. They are immediately evacuated from Vimy and sent to some city, such as Drocourt, further behind the Hun front-line.
The British were now in touch with the Hindenburg line all the way from Queant south to St. Quentin, and were pressing the Germans toward the Drocourt switch in the north. On the new lines east of Mont Haut held by the Germans a position garrisoned by 200 men was captured by the French during the night of May 5, 1917.
The British obtained a grip on Bullecourt for the time being, but they knew the respite would be brief, when the Germans would return and renew the bloody struggle. The old Hindenburg line having been breached at Bullecourt and Wancourt, the Germans were now busy strengthening their new line of defense which ran through Montigny, Drocourt, and Queant.
There's a show to-morrow, and we must be over the canal before daybreak.... Heard the splendid news?... We've got right across the Drocourt Quéant line.... That's one reason why we are pushing here to-morrow."
Gains were made at all points attacked, and the so-called Oppy-Mericourt line which protects the Drocourt switch to the Hindenburg line was pierced again. An eyewitness stated that he saw no less than five gray waves of Germans blindly facing the British fire in an attempt to regain the lost positions.
From Drocourt, just to the northwest of Douai, the line stretched for forty miles in a fairly straight line down through Vitryen-Artois, Villiers, Cagnocourt to Queant and Pronville, thence on to Boursies, Havrincourt, Gour Zeacourt, Epehy and St. Quentin. The first, or upper section of this line from Drocourt to Queant was called the Wotan line.
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