It was as late as June that General Anthoine's soldiers had taken their stand to the left of the British armies, and after the tremendous fights along the Chemin des Dames and Moronvillers in April, it might well be believed that they were tired. They had borne the burden from the very first; they had been on the Marne and the Yser in 1914, at the numberless and costly offensives of 1915 in Artois, Champagne, Lorraine and Alsace; and in 1916, after the Verdun epic, they had had to fight on the Somme. Indeed, they had only ceased repelling the enemy's attacks in order to attack in their turn. Among the Allies, they represented invincible determination, as well as a perfected military method. Those troops arriving on June 15, on ground they had never seen before, might well have been anxious for a respite; yet on July 31 they were in the fighting line with the British. Two days before the attack they crossed the Yser canal by twenty-nine bridges without losing one man, and showed an intelligence and spirit which added to their ascendancy over the enemy and increased the prestige of the French army. And while Marshal Haig was finding such an exceptional second in General Anthoine, Petain, now commander-in-chief, was aiding the British offensive by attacking the Germans at other points on the front: on August 20 the Second Army under Guillaumat was victorious on the Meuse, near Verdun, while the Sixth Army under Maistre was preparing for the Malmaison offensive which on October 23 secured for the French the whole length of the Chemin des Dames to the river Ailette.