The new French positions to the north of Combles were violently attacked on this same date, but the German effort was broken by the machine-gun and artillery barrage. The French captured over 500 prisoners and ten machine guns.
South of the Somme, on a front of about twelve miles, the French troops attacked enemy organizations from Barleux to the region south of Chaulnes and were entirely successful in gaining their objectives.
Southwest of Barleux the French infantry in a single push carried three successive German lines and advanced over a mile, which brought them to the outskirts of Berny and Deniécourt. To the south, by a well-planned enveloping movement, the village of Soyécourt was carried, and here a whole Prussian battalion was cut off and surrendered after a short resistance. South of Vermandovillers, where the Germans occupied a portion of the village, the French launched an attack on the German front in the afternoon, but it was night before they could break through north of Chilly. The French pushed on through the breach, forcing the Germans to retire to their second line, leaving 1,200 prisoners, guns and machine guns in French hands. Desperate attempts were made by the German General von Hein to recover the lost ground. Before the French had time to consolidate their positions he launched six counterattacks, all of which failed under the French barrage of fire. On September 4, 1916, the French made 2,700 prisoners between Barleux and Chilly.
OPERATIONS AT VERDUN--BRITISH VICTORIES IN THE SOMME
The intense activity of the Allied forces in the Somme region in August and during the first week in September, 1916, exceeded in interest the happenings around Verdun. While only one building in the town remained uninjured by the shells which the Germans poured into it daily, the French, to whom the initiative had passed, continued to harry the enemy daily along the Thiaumont-Vaux front. Their "nibbling" process went on unceasingly, seizing some hundred yards of trenches, or taking batches of 200 or 300 prisoners with such frequency as to produce a decidedly depressing effect on the German commanders and on their troops, who in this sector represented the pick of the German army.