On the following day a great attack was launched by the Germans from south of Meteren to Voormezeele, upon the French D.A.N.[56] and the Second British Army. Everywhere it was completely and bloodily repulsed. To the enemy it was a terrible check. April the 29th, 1918, deserves to rank as high as the following 8th of August[57] in the history of the war. It marked the failure of the German northward offensive. For failure that offensive was, as the Somme offensive was not. The tenacity of troops on the flanks, such as the 55th Division on the right and the 9th on the left, had confined and narrowed the thrust. The curious formation of great hills, in almost straight line across the Flanders plain; Kemmel, the Scherpenberg, Mont Rouge, Mont Vidaigne, Mont Noir, Mont Kokereele, Mont des Cats, then, after a gap, Cassel, proved an impassable barrier in later stages of the battle. The first of the series alone fell. Upon the rest French artillery was now massed, pouring death into the Germans below. A few days earlier Ludendorff had, at a critical moment, struck again at Amiens. That offensive, which might have changed the whole position, had been pushed back before counter-attacks, and nipped in bud by the brilliant recapture of Villers-Bretonneux by the Australian Corps. The Germans were to make new offensives and gain much ground, notably near Rheims, where they cut the main Eastern Railway, and came all too close to Paris at Château-Thierry. But they were the blows of desperation. Week by week drew nearer the great retribution. The next six weeks passed quietly for the 36th Division. The chief diversion was about a little dug-out near Juliet Farm, in the front line, formerly a Signals testing-point for overhead wires. Here there was constant bombing and raiding, largely to the disadvantage of the German troops, who were not of first quality and were unable to withstand our men in close fighting. During the month of May fourteen prisoners were taken by the Division on seven separate occasions. One night a German wagon with rations drove into our outpost position in error and was captured, so indeterminate were the opposing front lines. The 36th Divisional Artillery had returned and taken over the defence of the front before the end of April. Early in May it received, with all other British divisional artilleries in France, a proportion of Indian personnel for its D.A.C., to replace English drivers. These were thereupon sent back for training as gunners.