“GENERAL HEADQUARTERS OF THE ATTACKING TROOPS NORTH-EAST OF VAUX, _June 4_. “On June 2, at four o’clock in the morning, the four attacking companies were drawn up in a semicircle round Fort Vaux, at about 100 yards’ distance; at one swoop they pushed forward even to the ditch, which, 10 yards broad and 5 deep, encloses the whole earthwork, in the form of an irregular trapezoid, within its sheer walls built of large square stones. Across the appalling curtain fire of the French we had only been able to convey a part of our war material up to the heights of the fort: flame-throwers, hand-grenades, axes, and wire-cutters. “In consequence of the long bombardment with heavy guns, the fort, though very massively built, was no longer capable of defending the surrounding space effectively; but the dug-outs, hollowed out deep in the rocks and covered with reinforced concrete, had held out. The flanking transverse passages of the fort, too, were still factors to be reckoned with. Accordingly the first problem was to make their artillery and machine-guns harmless; for these, with their raking fire, churned up the bottom of the ditch, and prevented us from crossing and reaching the interior of the fort. Each of the two breastworks in front showed an open breach, caused by very heavy projectiles, in the gigantic blocks of concrete of which they were formed. The damage was repaired, up to a point, by sandbags; and, to protect the breach, they had placed there a machine-gun which might be able to operate towards the glacis. The principal obstacle, however, was still the guns of the transverse passages, which from their narrow concrete embrasures could sweep the short line of the ditches with a pitiless fire. Access to either of the breastworks was impeded by the fire of a 37 mm. revolving gun, a 55 mm. gun, and by two machine-guns. Not a cat could have passed through. “First of all, the machine-gun, which at the very breach prevented our approach, was silenced by hand-grenades. Then the pioneers crept right up to the upper edge of the escarped wall, above the western transverse passage, set up the flame-throwers, and, from above, with the aid of a crank shaft, inserted the tubes of the flame-throwers into the embrasures. A flame of two yards, accompanied by dense smoke, drove the garrison far away from its guns.