dashed forward. Bullets and shells soon silenced the music; of fifteen bandsmen only five escaped unwounded, but the companies leading the charge were by this time climbing the slopes of Vauquois. At the divisional observation-post, General Valdant, who was following the attack, turning with great emotion to his officers, raised his _képi_, and said: “Gentlemen, salute!” The fight was stubborn; twice the troops, dashing from one shell-hole to another, reached the plateau, the second time standing firm. The houses were taken one by one, and the church reached. The village had been wiped out--only shell-holes, heaps of stones, bits of walls and shattered cellars remained. Throughout the next day the Germans shelled the defenders, who were armed only with rifles. Outflanked, the French were slowly forced back from shell-hole to shell-hole, fighting all the time, but their line of defence, organised under fire on the edge of the plateau, brought the enemy to a standstill. At 2 p.m. the French infantry, for the fifth time, stormed the village, carried the German trenches, entered the ruins, and within half an hour drove back the enemy at the point of the bayonet. At 3, 4, 5 and 5.30 p.m., the Germans counter-attacked; but although troops of fourteen different units were successively launched, they could not dislodge the French from the main street. Twice during the night they tried, in vain, to take the church. For four days and nights, under an incessant pounding by high-explosive shells and a rain of bullets, the French troops held on without supplies, dependent for their food on the rations taken from the dead. The Colonial Infantry, who for a short time relieved the attacking troops, were decimated in a few days. The Germans were already making use of a powerful _minenwerfer_, to which the French could only reply with hastily-devised mortars roughly made out of 77 m.m. shell-cases, and which carried only 100-150 yards. It was an unequal contest. The Germans attacked almost every night, but were repulsed with hand-grenades and rifle fire, sometimes with the bayonet. The position became untenable and the French had either to retreat or advance. Once more they attacked. On the afternoon of March 4, the 76th regiment of the line took the German trenches west of the church, reaching the wall of the cemetery, in spite of enemy grenades and mines. On the 5th a German counter-attack was repulsed and the capture of Vauquois by the French was definitive. During the night of the 15th-16th, a fresh German attack was easily repulsed. On the 16th, at the Cigalerie, which during the attacks of February and March had served as a dressing station, Standard-bearer Collignon, of the 46th Regiment of the line, Councillor of State, and former Secretary-General to the Presidency of the Republic, who had voluntarily enlisted at the age of fifty-eight, was killed by the explosion of a shell while trying to