No sooner had this started than the enemy opened a violent bombardment with asphyxiating shells and shrapnel on our trenches and on our infantry as they were withdrawing.  Meanwhile our guns had not been idle.  From a distance, perhaps owing to some peculiarity of the light, the gas on this occasion looked like a great reddish cloud, and the moment it was seen our batteries poured a concentrated fire on the German trenches.

Curious situations then arose between us and the enemy.  The poison belt, the upper part shredding into thick wreaths of vapor as it was shaken by the wind, and the lower and denser part sinking into all inequalities of the ground, rolled slowly down the trenches.  Shells would rend it for a moment, but it only settled down again as thickly as before.

Nevertheless, the German infantry faced it, and they faced a hail of shrapnel as well.  In some cases where the gas had not reached our lines our troops held firm and shot through the cloud at the advancing Germans.  In other cases the men holding the front line managed to move to the flank, where they were more or less beyond the affected area.  Here they waited until the enemy came on and then bayoneted them when they reached our trenches.

On the extreme left our supports waited until the wall of vapor reached our trenches, when they charged through it and met the advancing Germans with the bayonet as they swarmed over the parapets.

South of St. Julien the denseness of the vapor compelled us to evacuate trenches, but reinforcements arrived who charged the enemy before they could establish themselves in position.  In every case the assaults failed completely.  Large numbers were mown down by our artillery.  Men were seen falling and others scattering and running back to their own lines.  Many who reached the gas cloud could not make their way through it, and in all probability a great number of the wounded perished from the fumes.

It is to that extent, from a military standpoint, a sign of weakness.  Another sign of weakness is the adoption of illegal methods of fighting, such as spreading poisonous gas.  It is a confession by the Germans that they have lost their former great superiority in artillery and are, in any cost, seeking another technical advantage over their enemy as a substitute.

Nevertheless, this spirit, this determination on the part of our enemies to stick at nothing must not be underestimated.  Though it may not pay the Germans in the long run, it renders it all the more obvious that they are a foe that can be overcome only by the force of overwhelming numbers of men and guns.

Further to the east a similar attack was made about 7 P.M. which seems to have been attended with even less success, and the assaulting infantry was at once beaten back by our artillery fire.

It was not long before all our trenches were reoccupied and the whole line re-established in its original position.  The attack on the French met with the same result.