There was a more satisfactory proportion of gains to losses in the more limited operations which characterized Pétain's substitution for Nivelle as French commander-in-chief. After Nivelle's comprehensive disappointment on the Chemin des Dames and Moronvillers heights in April, Pétain restricted the field of his attacks and took ample time to prepare them. It was not until August that the first was launched, and for a sphere of action Pétain reverted once more to Verdun. The victories of October and December 1916 were commonly represented as having recovered all that the Germans had won in the spring of that year; in fact they were confined to the right bank of the Meuse. No attempt had been made to wrest from the enemy his gains to the left of the river; and his line ran in August 1917 precisely where it had run twelve months before, a German gain at the Col de Pommerieux on 28 June having been recovered by the French on 17 July. Pétain was, however, a past-master in the art of limited offensives; his aims were less ambitious than those which Nivelle or even Haig had set before themselves, but he achieved them with scientific precision and without the devastating losses which had attended the larger and less successful projects. The terrain he selected was less affected by the vagaries of the weather, and either he was better served by his meteorological experts or was singularly favoured by fortune. His main object was not the tactical gains he secured, but the restoration of the confidence of French soldiers in their offensive capacity which had been severely shaken in April. During June and July they had been mainly engaged in repelling German attacks on the Chemin des Dames, though Gouraud, who succeeded Anthoine in the Champagne command, secured some valuable local gains on the Moronvillers heights.