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The French capture of Souchez was an event of considerable importance, for the German High Command had issued orders for this section to hold on to the last, that it was to be retained at all costs. The road to the Douai plain was to be barred to the French, who had to be held back behind the advanced works of the Artois plateau.
There remained only one stage to cover the Souchez Valley to reach the last crest which dominated the whole country to the east, and beyond which the ground is flat. This task had been accomplished during the last few days of September and the beginning of October.
East of Souchez another British raiding party penetrated German lines and wrecked the defenses. The Germans continued their efforts to drive the French out of their positions in the region of Hill 304. On this date, January 29, 1917, they made a violent attack with grenades on an advanced French trench in this sector, but were repulsed with losses by the French artillery.
So, too, the French capture of the Vimy heights, which had been announced in May that year, proved something of a fairy tale, and in April 1917 our line ran barely east of Souchez, Neuville, and the Labyrinth. It was held by Allenby's Third Army, which joined Gough's Fifth just south of Arras, and by Horne's First, which extended Allenby's left from Lens northwards to La Bassee.
The French attack on the right, being held up by machine-gun fire, could not be maintained in the cemetery, and it was decided to approach Souchez by the main road so that they might pour in their forces on the east, while, to the north, the French force that had bitten its way into the Hache Wood was to continue its advance. This maneuver decided the day.
On the canal from the Aisne to the Marne the French bombarded the trenches, batteries and cantonments of the Germans in the environs of Sapigneul and of Neuville, near Berry-au-Bac. Grenade engagements took place near the Bethune-Arras road and north of Souchez. In Champagne and in the Argonne also, long range artillery fighting rent the air.
We consumed a morning waiting on the Lillers-Béthune road to see Lord Kitchener drive past in a motor; we watched the Indians going up to the trenches in motor 'buses, and a motley crew of picturesque French Colonials going by train to Souchez: Zouaves, turbaned and bearded, Algerians, with thick-lipped niggers from Congo and Senegal, who ran along the open trucks shouting and gesticulating.
We had our little excitements, as on May 9th, when the French attacked at Souchez, which was long remembered as 'the day of hate. An elaborate demonstration was prepared by the brigade, of which the chief items were the exposure of trench-bridges 'obviously concealed, and the firing throughout the day of long bursts of rapid fire.
Then if you try to pierce the northern haze, beyond that ruined tower, you may follow in imagination the course of the Yser westward to that Belgian coast where Admiral Hood's guns broke down and scattered the German march upon Dunkirk and Calais; or if you turn south you are looking over the Belfry of Bailleul, towards Neuve Chapelle, and Festubert, and all the fierce fighting-ground round Souchez and the Labyrinth.
After violent artillery-fire preparations, the French center south of Carency was pushed forward a distance of three miles. In a few days they took the towns of Albain, Carency, Neuville St. Vaast, and most of Souchez, besides the whole plateau of Lorette. But the Germans had prepared a number of fortins, which had to be captured before any general advance could be made.
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