his face wore a faint smile of acknowledgment. The king's injuries proved to be worse than was at first supposed, necessitating his removal to London on a stretcher. CHAPTER XII OPERATIONS IN CHAMPAGNE AND ARTOIS--PREPARATIONS FOR WINTER CAMPAIGN By the middle of October operations on the western front centralized almost entirely in the Champagne and Artois districts, where the Germans, fully appreciating the menace to their lines created by the results of the allied offensive, sought by continuous violent counterattacks to recover the territory from which they had been dislodged and to prevent the Allies from consolidating and strengthening their gains. Their attacks in the Artois fell chiefly between Hulluch and Hill 70, and southeast of Givenchy, against the heights of Petit Vimy. The Germans succeeded in retaking small sections of first-line trenches, but lost some of their new trenches in return. Whereas the Allies held practically all they had gained, the Germans were considerably the losers by the transaction. The British attempted to continue their offensive by driving between Loos and Hulluch, the most important and at the same time the most dangerous section on the British front. By steadily forging ahead southeast of Loos toward Hill 70, the British were driving a wedge into the German line and creating a perilous salient around the town of Angres as the center. To obviate the danger from counterattacks against the sides of the salient, the British endeavored to flatten out the point of the wedge by capturing more ground north of Hill 70 toward Hulluch. To some extent the plan succeeded; they advanced east of the Lens-La Bassee road for about 500 yards, an apparently insignificant profit, but it had the effect of strengthening the British position. Uninterrupted fighting in Champagne had made little difference to either side, save that the French had managed to straighten out their line somewhat, though they were by no means nearer to their desired goal--the Challerange-Bazancourt railway. If that could be taken, the Germans facing them would be cut off from the crown prince's army operating in the Argonne. Bulgaria had meanwhile entered the conflict and started the finishing campaign of Serbia with the assistance of her Teutonic allies.