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Updated: May 5, 2025
The Germans held positions on the heights of Samogneux and Champneuville, and their operations were threatened by the French artillery in the line west of the river. On March 6, 1916, the Germans began to bombard the French positions from the Meuse to Béthincourt.
Repeating the process on the following day for by then the French had fallen back to their second line, now badly battered, at Samogneux and Hill 344 these new positions were assailed with such a torrent of shells that by the evening they were absolutely untenable, and a further retirement was essential.
Ornes on the east and Samogneux on the west had to be abandoned, and on the 24th the Germans were threatening the centre of the last of the French lines of defence at Louvemont and Hill 347.
Brabant was evacuated by the French during the night of February 22, 1916. At Samogneux, owing to the intensity of the German fire, they remained on the defensive. Several counterattacks to the east were carried out which greatly improved the French positions.
Never can I forget that terrible picture. "I followed the attack on Haumont and Samogneux. The field of battle was lighted as if in full day by star shells. Black masses of Germans advanced, protected by their artillery, while ours remained silent. Finally our artillery began, and then the enemy ranks wavered, halted and disappeared.
There was the loud tramp of feet on the road which led from Beaumont to Vacherauville, and, as the two drew nearer to that village, they could hear columns of men approaching along the road from Samogneux.
But the depression in the centre created a salient on either side, and the French could only fight desperate rearguard actions while the line was straightened out; by Wednesday morning they were back on a line running due east from Samogneux. But the German pressure on the centre was renewed and the French were pressed back to Beaumont and the Bois des Fosses.
The Germans continued to bombard the Woevre front, but did not attempt to attack as the French artillery held them to their trenches. During the day the Germans, who had been hemmed in at Samogneux, after repeated struggles to debouch from that place, succeeded when night came in capturing Hill 304.
On the following day the Cote de l'Oie and Regnéville fell on the left bank, and Samogneux on the right. On the 24th the French took Camard wood and Hill 304 and advanced to the south bank of the Forges brook, which remained their line until the American attack in October 1918, while further progress was made east of the Meuse on the 25th until the outskirts of Beaumont were reached.
Posted on an eminence in the neighbourhood of Samogneux, the German High Command, safe from the rifle-fire of the French, watched through their glasses as those sinister lines of grey swept from the wood in which they had been taking cover, and, marching steadily over the ground, advanced upon their objective.
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