Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 10.djvu/496

LEFT WORLD WAR 426 WORLD WAR about two million men had defended or attacked the stronghold, and it was esti- mated that the losses on both sides ex- ceeded 200,000. The French, to whom the initiative had passed, by nibbling methods began to recover their lost positions and recaptured forts Douau- mont and Vaux among other points. The Somme offensive had been under- taken to relieve the pressure on Ver- dun, as well as to prevent the trans- ference of large bodies of troops from the west to the eastern front, where Russian troops under General Brussilov had begun a sweeping drive against the Austro-German lines to the south. The front attacked extended twenty-five miles in Picardy, where the river Somme flows with many crooked turns, its main con- figuration in the battle area being a horse-shoe loop which gave the river east and west banks as well as north and south. The line ran north and south. The British had the hardest task in the N. and failed to achieve their objectives at first; in the S. a substantial success was immediately accomplished by the French. In the initial attack on July 1, the Brit- ish encountered a series of strongly for- tified villages — Gommecourt, Serre, Beau- mont-Hamel, and Thiepval — but the Ger- man resistance was so destructive to their ranks that they struggled back to their own line. Lower down the British struck deep in the German positions. After five days* fighting they made fur- ther substantial progress, though hard- hit at several points. Five days later they had methodically completed the capture of the enemy's first line system of defenses on a front of 14,000 yards. The defenses consisted of numerous and continuous lines of trenches, extending to various depths of from 2,000 to 4,000 yards and included five strongly forti- fied villages, many heavily wired and in- trenched woods and strong redoubts. In the second phase of the battle, beginning July 14, the British cut their way through a four-mile line toward Longue- val, Pozieres, Delville Wood and Ba- zentin. By nightfall they succeeded in capturing the whole of the German second line from Bazentin-le-Petit to Longueval, a front of over three miles. A fierce struggle waged round Longue- val and Delville Wood which continued without pause for thirteen days. Or- villers, an obstacle to a general attack on Pozieres, was taken, but it was not until^ July 24 that the greater part of Pozieres was captured. Later the points to the N., including the obstinate forti- fied village of Thiepval, which the Brit- ish had failed to overcome were stormed and occupied. The French under General Foch ad- vanced in the same methodical order as the British. They achieved their suc- cesses at less cost, due to less resistance by the enemy. In their attacks N. and S. of the Somme loop they won all their objectives and something more. On a front of ten miles they penetrated in less than two weeks a maximum depth of six and a half miles, or fifty square miles, of enemy territory, containing similar military works encountered by the British. The Somme offensive duly lost its in- itial momentum, yet continued through- out the rest of the year as part of the regular fighting operations on the west- ern front. A number of additional im- portant points were captured after hard fighting. British successes N. of the Ancre finally resulted in the retirement of the Germans from that stream in the Somme sector. The Russian front that was relieved from German re -enforcements extended W. of Riga to Dvinsk, Pinsk, Dubno and Czernowitz. This line roughly represent- ed the stage of the German advance on January 1, 1916. W. of it lay a vast region of Russian territory overrun by the Centi*al Powers. Disregarding cli- matic conditions, the Russians, at a heavy cost, made strong attempts to break through by local drives during the open- ing months of the year; then restricted their activities to artillery duels and trench forays. They seemed to have wearied of vainly beating against an unyielding foe, but as the summer came their gun fire began to acquire an omi- nous strength and violence on the Aus- tro-German line from Pinsk S. to the Ru- manian border, especially in the region of the three Volhynian fortresses of Rovno, Dubno, and Lutsk on a front of some seventeen miles. A great attack, hurled mainly against the Austro-Hun- garian sectors, began on June 4, tim- ing with the Austrian offensive on the Italian front. Austria discovered that she could not undertake two large opera- tions at the same time — one an invasion of Italy, the other a defensive stand against a sweeping Russian advance on a 300-mile front. The result was she succeeded in neither. Germany like Aus- tria, had withdrawn many troops from the eastern front to aid her Verdun adventure, and Austria had sent similar drafts to swell her forces attacking Taly. No matter how strong the natural defenses nor how skillful the artificial obstacles, the Russians swept on in over- whelming numbers until their offensive threatened not only the pushing back of the Austrian lines but the very exist-