PARIS BOMBARDED AT LONG RANGE

Soon after the great offensive opened, the city of Paris was surprised by being bombarded from a distance of approximately 70 miles by a new German long-range gun, which was discovered by French airmen to be concealed in a concrete tunnel in a wood behind the German lines, A number of persons were killed and wounded by the nine-inch shells from this new weapon, 54 women being killed when a shell struck a church in the suburbs of the city on Good Friday.  The Allied commanders refused to regard the long-range gun as of any great military importance except as a means of spreading terror among the civilian population,—­and the population of Paris refused to be terrorized by such a method, exhibiting the same spirit as that of the people of England with regard to the futile aerial raids.

French estimates of the German losses for the first eleven days of the offensive placed them at between 275,000 and 300,000 men.  The Germans claimed that during the same period they had captured 70,000 prisoners and 1,000 field guns.

ANOTHER ATTACK ON AMIENS

Having been foiled in an attempt on March 31 to break through the valley of the Oise, Paris ceased to be the German objective, and another offensive against Amiens was undertaken on April 4.  By this time a French army had repaired the ragged line between the French on the south and the remainder of the British army of General Gough, whose enforced retirement had been conducted in good order.  Though outnumbered two to one, the British and French repulsed the attack on Amiens with heavy losses to the Germans, who were effectually stopped at a distance of fifteen kilometers (nine miles) from that city.  This ended the first phase of the great battle.

BATTLE RENEWED IN THE NORTH

The second phase of the battle which was expected to prove decisive began April 9 with an attack on the British, aided by Portuguese troops, on a front of fifteen miles, from La Bassee to Ypres.  The center, held by three Portuguese divisions, was broken through, and on April 12 the situation seemed critical.  Determined counterattacks by the British, however, and reinforcements by the French, stopped the Germans in the next few days, and this offensive, like that farther south in the valley of the Somme, gradually died out, leaving the Germans with gains of only a few square miles of devastated territory to show for their continued heavy losses.  And the reserve forces of the Allies were still intact, the strategy of General Foch in this respect being universally applauded as correct under the circumstances.

SHELLS FIRED BY THE MILLION