From the British front the country seemed a dead-flat plain studded with the head-gear of pits and groups of small houses, and seamed with roads. There was scarcely a tree in sight, and except for the collieries and slag heaps, the plain looked something like the South African veldt. But behind the downs which shut in the view of our men facing the northern half of the line, there were innumerable places where batteries of machine guns lay concealed. The map shows you that two corps of the First Army, under Sir Douglas Haig, were arrayed for the assault. The 1st Corps, under General Gough,[77] consisted of the 2nd, 9th, and 7th Divisions: the 2nd Division lay north of the canal, the 9th Division opposite to Fosse 8, and the 7th Division facing the Quarries. The 9th Division consisted of Scottish regiments--Highland and Lowland, "kilties" and men wearing the trews. South of the road from Vermelles to Hulluch lay the 4th Army Corps, under General Sir Henry Rawlinson. The 1st Division of his command was posted just south of the road; opposite to the Loos Redoubt was the 15th Division, also a wholly Scottish division, composed of men of the new army. This division had been for three months or more in the trenches facing Loos, and it was well acquainted with the ground over which it was soon to charge. On the extreme right was the 47th Division of Londoners. * * * * * When the guns began to roar in Champagne, the British artillery along the whole five-mile front from Givenchy to Grenay joined in the tumult. Across the plain a tornado of shells swept upon the German positions, and in many places the trenches were pounded into utter ruin. At 6.30 on the morning of 25th September the guns lifted their muzzles, and the high explosive shells rained a deluge of fire behind the first line of German defence. Then the whistles blew, and five miles of British troops with fixed bayonets clambered over their trenches. The great advance had begun. [Illustration: The Storming of Loos Road Redoubt. (_By permission of The Illustrated London News._) This redoubt (see map, page 349) was a fortified tongue of land jutting out of the German first-line trench. It was semicircular in form, and was protected by a perfect jungle of barbed wire entanglements. The British guns smashed the redoubt to ruin, and on September 25, 1915, it was carried. (See page 357.)]