I shall tell you the story of the British assault in a later chapter. I will now confine myself to the French effort. On Sunday, 9th May, General Foch, who had brought up no less than 1,100 guns of all kinds, began to bombard the German trenches between the villages of Carency and La Targette. You will notice from the map on page 223 that these trenches were called "The White Works." They were so named because the parapets, being cut from the chalk, showed up white and clear. The French bombardment was the most terrible that had ever been known in Europe up to that time. It went on for hours, and the French 75's, which can fire twenty-five aimed shots a minute, seemed to be pouring out shells like gigantic machine guns. When the bombardment ceased the White Works were simply a ploughed field strewn with fragments of wire and human bodies. More than 300,000 shells were hurled upon them in the course of the day.
[Footnote 38: _Loce_, about a mile to the north-west of Lens.]
At ten in the morning of Sunday, 9th May, the infantry advanced; the right seized the ruins of La Targette, and pushed on to capture Neuville St. Vaast, which lies in a hollow to the east of it. The big church, the cemetery, and almost every house in the place bristled with machine guns, and furious fights took place inside the buildings from cellar to garret. Nevertheless, by noon the village was in French hands. Farther north the centre had swept over the torn and tumbled ground which had once been the White Works, had crossed the highroad, and had dug itself in two and a half miles to the east of the position from which it had started that morning. Never since the trench war began had so much ground been gained in a single day. The French troops in the centre were in the highest spirits; as they surged on they plucked sprigs of lilac and hawthorn and stuck them in their caps. Had the whole line been able to advance along with the centre, Lens would have been captured that day. The left, however, was held up in front of Carency, which was now being bombarded. When night fell three lines of German trenches had been won, 3,000 prisoners had been taken, and 10 field guns and 50 machine guns had been captured.