Four thousand German prisoners were taken on the 24th and the next day the French began encircling Fort Vaux, the only one of the outer ring of forts at Verdun which remained in German hands.  All attempts on the part of the Crown Prince to regain the lost ground were fruitless.  Four German attacks were beaten back on the 26th, and the following day the French advanced south and west of Vaux and tightened their grip on the fortress.  During violent artillery duels, many German attacks on the gained ground were repulsed, and by November 1 the prisoners in French hands numbered 7,000.

On November 4 the French began the attempt to take the village of Vaux held by the Crown Prince, and gained a foothold in the village.  Next day they captured the whole of Vaux village and also the village of Damloup.  The fort at Vaux had been evacuated by the Germans a few days previously.  Thus the long and bloody struggle for the possession of Verdun apparently ended, although artillery duels of varying intensity continued at intervals, and the laurels of the prolonged campaign rested with the French.

BRILLIANT WORK OF CANADIAN TROOPS.

Brilliant work on the part of the Canadian troops on the Somme front aided materially to gain the British successes recorded on October 21.  William Philips Simms, an eyewitness with the Canadian forces, gave a graphic account of the attack, which was typical of much of the fighting on the Somme.  He said: 

“Eight minutes of dashing across a sea of mud worse than the Slough of Despond, of methodically advanced barrage fire, of quick work in trench fight, sufficed for the Canadians to take Regina trench—­one of the smoothest bits of trench-taking that has been witnessed in the Somme drive.  I saw the Canadians, muddy to the eyebrows—­but grinning—­on the day after they had accomplished the feat.

“The assault was over in eight minutes.  It was carried out in brilliant moonlight, and despite a terrific German counter barrage fire and a sea of mud.  Every objective the Canadians sought was won.

“Though the Germans repeatedly counter-attacked, the Canadians not only kept every inch they had wrested from the enemy, but before dawn they had strongly reorganized their position and dug over 250 yards of connecting trenches.”

ACTIVITIES OF THE RUSSIANS.

On the eastern front in the middle of September strong Russian attacks before Halicz were driving the Teutonic troops back toward Lemberg, and several thousand German and Turkish troops were captured.  The Russian advance was checked, however, on September 18, after a total of 25, prisoners had been taken by the Russians near Halicz.

The Russian offensive was shifted September 21 from the Lemberg sector to the east of Kovel and a few days after a fresh offensive began along the entire eastern front, heavy fighting being reported west of Lutsk and in the Carpathians.  Turkish troops at this time appeared on the Riga front, with German equipment and led by German and Austrian officers.  The great 300-mile battle continued unabated to the end of October, with fighting all along the line from the Pinsk marshes on the north to the Roumanian frontier on the south.