On March 27 and 28, the situation began to improve.  British reinforcements arrived at the points of greatest danger, and the defense stiffened, then held the lines firmly before Amiens, and at a distance from that threatened city sufficiently great to prevent its successful bombardment by all but the heaviest artillery of the enemy.  The devastated and shell-torn condition of the terrain taken over by the Germans was unfavorable for bringing up the great guns to within striking distance.  From that time on, the Allies were supremely confident of their ability to cope with any forces.

While the Allied armies, especially the British, lost heavily in men and guns during the Hun advance, many of the German divisions engaged in the drive were literally cut to pieces.  The 88th division was reported by prisoners to be practically annihilated.  The same prisoners, taken in counter-attacks, expressed the utmost surprise at the relatively small number of dead whom they had found in the British and French trenches as they advanced.  They had been informed by their officers that the offensive would be over in eight days, and that a complete victory over the Allies would be won within three or four weeks.

GERMAN DRIVE IS HALTED

The eighth day of the German offensive, far from finding the Huns victorious, resulted in tremendous attacks by the Germans being stopped by the unbeatable British, while the French won a brilliant victory at the south of the line.  Meanwhile the Germans had begun another attack in the Flanders sector, with the object of wresting from the British the control of Messines Ridge, which dominated the lowlands of Flanders and had been so gallantly won by the Canadians in the previous year.  They gained a partial footing on the ridge, but the greater part of it was grimly held, and all efforts of the enemy to advance through Ypres towards the Channel ports were frustrated.

Another sector was added to the north end of the battle line on the eighth day, March 28, when the Germans attacked heavily on both sides of the River Scarpe toward Arras.  Here some of the fiercest fighting of the offensive soon developed, but the ground gained by the Germans was insignificant.  Daily, however, they claimed to have captured thousands of Allied troops and hundreds of guns; while, on the other hand, enormously long ambulance trains were reported passing through Belgium with the German wounded, the hospitals in northern France not having sufficient accommodation for the sufferers.  On every battlefield of the 100-mile front—­for the fighting now covered that enormous stretch of territory, in two sections, north of La Bassee and south of Arras—­the German dead lay literally in heaps.

On March 29, the ninth day of the great battle in France, the German drive was practically halted, and both British and French reports noted a decrease of the fighting, enemy activity being manifested only by local attacks all along the front, which was being strengthened each day by the arrival of Allied reinforcements.