MANY GERMANS CAPTURED

In the three days’ fighting on the western front from August 21 to 23, the Entente Allies captured 25,000 German prisoners and by September 1 the total for August had reached more than 40,000, according to Major-General Frederick B. Maurice, chief director of the British war intelligence office.  This topped the figure of prisoners which the Germans claimed to have taken in a single month on the Russian front, although their total undoubtedly was composed by at least half of mere stragglers from the mutinous and disorganized Russian units.

On September 1, 1917, the positions recaptured by the French around Verdun were safely consolidated in their possession, every German effort being thrown back in disorder.  The fighting had developed into a big-gun duel, in which the French continued to maintain undoubted mastery, and they were firmly established once more on the left bank of the Meuse, which the Germans had intended to hold at all costs.  Thus ended the last hope of the Crown Prince of Germany, who apparently was obsessed with the desire to conquer Verdun, in the neighborhood of which thousands of the flower of the German army found only a burial place, without any laurels of victory.

ALLIED GAINS IN THE WEST

The early autumn of 1917 witnessed steady gains by the British and French forces co-operating in Flanders and to the South of the Belgian border along the western front.  The artillery on both sides was constantly active, but with evident superiority on the part of the Allies.  Repeated German attacks were repulsed in the Champagne and along the Meuse, while in the Ypres region the Allied troops made frequent gains in spite of the concrete defenses established by the enemy to strengthen their entrenched positions.

Repeated successes of the Allies along the Chemin des Dames finally forced a German retreat along a fifteen-mile front which the Crown Prince had made strenuous efforts to hold.  The Germans were compelled to retire because French victories on October 21-23 enabled French guns to enfilade the Ailette Valley behind the German positions, exposing the enemy to a series of disastrous flanking attacks and hampering the German communications.  On October 30-31 the French bombarded the German lines vigorously.  The enemy had already moved their artillery across the Ailette to a ridge north of the river.  On the night of November 1 they completed their preparations for retreat and withdrew their infantry.  French patrols approaching the German lines on the morning of November 2 were fired upon at first, but on renewing their reconnoissance soon after dawn found the German trenches empty.