Next day there was not much fighting on the British front. News arrived that the French 5th Army had been obliged to fall back, and that the Moroccans, on the British right, had retired, and thus left open the flank of our First Corps. Next morning (17th September), however, there was good news from the left. The French 6th Army had won back all the ground which it had lost, and was now in a strong position on the edge of the plateau. The British divisions which had been driven back to the stream were not molested; but the 1st Division, perched high up on the plateau at Troyon, came in for a bad time.
The Northamptons, on the extreme right, had clung to their positions, in spite of every effort to dislodge them. On the morning of the 17th the Germans in the opposite trenches showed a white flag as a token of surrender. They were called upon to come forward, and they did so, right to the edge of our trenches, and then most treacherously poured in a hot rifle fire. Many of our men were shot down; but happily there was a British machine gun, manned by a detachment of the Queen's, on the flank of the trench, and only 400 yards away. It opened fire at once, cutting a lane through the mass of the Germans, and killing three hundred of them. About one hundred of the survivors held up their hands and were made prisoners, while the rest fell back to their own trench. The trap had failed. Shortly afterwards a battalion of the Guards arrived, and drove them still farther back, with more loss.
On the next day (18th September) there was a lull in the fighting, though the 1st and 2nd British Divisions made a general attack, during which the Gloucesters, charging through the darkness, carried a line of the enemy's trenches. The whole French line to the east was making no progress, and it was now clear that the German positions could not be carried by a frontal attack. In five days' furious and deadly struggle but little ground had been gained. The forces opposed to each other were too evenly matched, and the trenches of the enemy were too strongly defended to be captured without a terrible loss of life. All that the Allies could do was to dig themselves in deeply, and slowly and painfully creep forward to the German lines by sap and mine.