At 4 P.M., when the reserve regiment of the Marines had finished its task in applying in savage hand-to-hand fighting, characteristic of the old days before open warfare became the rule, all its training in trench warfare, an order was given to obey that of the Marshal; but it hardly concerned the front regiment of Marines, which was without the support of the reserve regiment, while the retarded French on the flank, still fighting hard for their gains, were well to the rear. The reserve regiment of the Regulars, passing through the front regiment, made three-quarters of a mile, where it met machine-gun fire from both flanks. At 7.30, the French on the left having made progress, the reserve regiment of Marines, passing through the front regiment, made another hard-won gain against flanking fire, and in the darkness had to repulse two counter-attacks. It had been a great day even for the 2nd Division, with four miles of advance and a toll of two thousand prisoners; a day of systematic and masterly fighting which had added to its list of honors that of forcing the Germans forever out of the deep maze of the Champagne trenches. The trucks and the rolling kitchens as well as the artillery, which had never been far behind the infantry, were up that night; and the ambulances, in keeping with the race-horse spirit, running close up to the front, had made a record in their expeditious care of the wounded, who had been gathered with a promptness, in the fields under fire, worthy of a show drill at maneuvers. For if we had any division which knew how, and had reasons of long service for knowing how, to coördinate all its branches in action, it was the division which had learned its lessons in the taking of Belleau Wood, Vaux, and Vauxcastille. It need not be said that the program was to continue the advance the next day; but the Germans had been preparing overnight to impede its fulfillment with something of the same ferocity they had shown in the Essen trench. As usual in these days, after the Allied attack had spent its initial momentum in breaking them out of their fortifications, the Germans reacted by applying open warfare tactics on a second line of resistance. While the French were striving to come up on both flanks, the whole line was being deluged with shells and machine-gun fire. On the afternoon of the first day, the Marines by their customarily swift tactics had taken a portion of Blanc-Mont--the adjective being used before the name, contrary to modern French fashion--a hill which ran back in an irregular shelf covered by patches of sparse woods. Well-made trenches, dugouts, and communicating trenches so easily dug and kept up in the firm chalk, were evidence of the German's appreciation of the hill's importance in the defense of their positions east of Rheims.