It was not surprising that some of our leaders had not yet learned to apply in the stress of action and the conflict of reports the principle that when committed to one plan it is better to go through with it than to create confusion by inaugurating another which may seem better. Half-executed orders were countermanded and changed and then changed again; and this led to trucks trying to turn round in the narrow roads, and to eddies in that confused scene of the hectic striving of each man and unit to do his part. The effect suggested a premature dress rehearsal of a play on a stage without lights, while the stage-hands were short of sets and the actors were still dependent upon reading their parts. When morning came, few rolling kitchens indeed had reached the objective of the men's stomachs with their cargo. Our heavy artillery was still struggling in the rear. Only a portion of our light artillery was up. Where our troops were fresh on the first day, they were now already tired. The Germans had made the most of the night. Their reserves which had arrived included the 5th Guard Division, already on the way when we began the battle. We needed our heavy artillery to pound roads and villages, and to counter artillery which the Germans had brought into action. Against the increase of German machine-guns we needed the rolling barrages of our light artillery even more than on the first day after we were through the trench system. Renewing the attack over the full length of our twenty miles of front, we were to advance with our moving shields irregularly distributed and vulnerable in most places. Any observer could see soon after daylight, in the widespread puffs of German shells on the landscape, that the inevitable had happened, as in all previous offensives. The enemy artillery had other targets than our infantry; he was laying a barrier to the infantry's support on the roads, halting the columns of traffic, forcing reserves to cover, and making new shell-holes in the roads to be filled by the transport and engineer workers. The important thing on the second day was to take Montfaucon. On the ridges west of the town the German infantry, artillery, and machine-gunners were utilizing the positions which he had laid out months before the attack. He fought stubbornly here as in Cuisy Wood and on the hills on the left; but buffeted as they were, our men, under firm orders to keep on attacking, conquered both systems. This cracked the shell of the Montfaucon defenses. Before noon we were in the town.