The Franco-British offensive began on July 1, 1916, on the flat lands lying along both banks of the Somme River.  The general plan of these operations had been agreed upon in the preceding December.  The battle of Verdun had not prevented its execution which, on the contrary, was expected to relieve Verdun.  The attack was made on a front of 40 kilometers between Gommecourt on the north and Vermandovillers on the south of the river.  From the beginning the French penetrated the enemy’s first lines, the 20th Corps took the village of Curlu and held the Faviere wood, while the 1st Colonial Corps and one division of the 35th Corps passed the Fay ravine and took possession of Bacquincourt, Dompierre and Bussus.  On the third, this successful advance continued into the second lines.  Within just a few days General Fayolle’s army had taken 10,000 prisoners, 75 cannon, and several hundred machine-guns.  But the Germans, who were concentrated in the Peronne region, with strong positions like Maurepas, Combles, and Clery, and, further in the rear, Bouchavesnes and Sailly-Saillisel on the right bank, and Estrees, Belloy-en-Santerre, Barleux, Albaincourt and Pressoire on the left bank, made such desperate resistance that the struggle was prolonged into mid-winter.  The German retreat in March, 1917, to the famous Hindenburg line was the strategic result of this terrible battle, the tactics of which were continuously successful and the connection between the different arms brought to perfection, while the infantry made an unsurpassed record for suffering and endurance and will power in such combats as Maurepas (August 12), Clery (September 3), Bouchavesnes (September 12)—­where, when evening came, the enemy was definitely broken—­and the taking of Berny-en-Santerre, of Deniecourt, of Vermandovillers (September 13) on the left bank, and on the right bank the entry into Combles (surrounded on September 26), the advance on Sailly-Saillisel and the stubborn defense of this ruined village whose chateau and central district had already been occupied on October 15, and in which a few houses resisted until November 12.  Then, there was the fight for the Chaulnes wood, and La Maisonnette and Ablaincourt and Pressoire; and everywhere it was the same as at Verdun:  the woods were razed to the ground, villages disappeared into the soil, and the earth was so plowed and crushed and martyred that it was nothing but one immense wound.

Now, the air forces had had their part in the victory.  Obliged, as they were at Verdun, to resist the numerical superiority of the enemy, they had thrown off the tyranny of atmospheric conditions and accepted and fulfilled diverse missions in all kinds of weather.  Verdun had hardened them, as it had “burned the blood” of the infantry who had never known a worse hell than that one.  But as our operations now took the initiative, the aviation corps was able to prepare its material more effectively, to organize its aerodromes and concentrate its forces beforehand.