The firing covered a front of a mile and a quarter. The bombardment was of high explosive shells and gas, apparently an effort to disable the return fire from American artillery. But all through the night the artillerymen sent their shells, encasing themselves in gas-masks. Toward dawn the attack began. A full regiment of German soldiers, preceded by 1,200 shock troops, advanced under a barrage. Halfway across No Man's Land the American artillery laid down a counter-barrage, and many of the Germans dropped under it, but still the great waves of them came on, focussing on the village of Seicheprey. The impact of their terrific numbers was too powerful to be withstood at once. The American troops fell back from some of their first-line trenches, which the first bombardment had caused them to hold loosely, and part of the forces fell back even from the village. The Germans marched into the village, evidently believing it to have been totally abandoned, carrying their flame-throwers and grenades, but making no use of them. Suddenly they discovered that certain American troops had been left to defend the village, while the main force reformed at the rear, and hand-to-hand fighting in the street became necessary. An American commander sent word back that the troops were giving ground by inches, and that they could hold for a few hours. Seicheprey, the first big American battle, had every element of the World War in little. Before the loss of the village, which occurred about noon, the troops defending it had fought from ambush and in the open, had fought with gas and liquid fire, with grenades, rifles, and machine-guns. In the inferno the new troops were giving proof of valor that was to come out later and be scattered broadcast, as a measure of what America would bring. In and out of the streets of Seicheprey, in its little public square, from the yards of its houses, hundreds of American soldiers were fighting for their lives. France lay behind them, trusting to be saved. Other Americans were behind them, racing into formation with French troops for the counter-attack. The defenders of Seicheprey, "giving by inches," had a battle-cry of their own, brief and racy, of the football-fields: "Hold 'em." After a while the Germans took Seicheprey. The hideously pressed, slow-giving outpost moved back. Before the day had finished the shell-stripped streets of Seicheprey, sheltering the invaders, weltered again under the first American shells of the counter-attack. By nightfall the troops were creeping forward under the counter-barrage. The army, reformed, refreshed, and replenished, was on its way to take its own back again. The counter-battle lacked the monstrous gruelling of the first attack. It took less time. The superiority of numbers had shifted to the other side, and the white heat of determination did its share. The Germans held Seicheprey about four hours.