On the day following the French made a general attack that achieved brilliant results. North of the Somme over a front of five kilometers from Ridge 139 (800 meters north of Hardecourt) the French carried the first German trenches. They reached as far as the slope east of the height of Hardecourt. Their line passed the boundary of Maurepas, and followed the highway from Maurepas to Feuillieres. South of the Somme they carried the whole of the German defense system from Barleux to Vermandovillers. During the two following days the British guns incessantly bombarded the entire German front. Two new corps had been joined with the Fifth Army, the Second and First Anzac, which occupied ground between the Ancre and south of the Albert-Bapaume road. On July 23, 1916, the British launched a strong attack over a wide front. The heaviest blows were centered on Pozieres and the Windmill on the left. The village was now a mass of rubble, but amid the ruins the Germans had fortified almost every yard of ground, there were deep and carefully prepared dugouts, cunningly concealed machine-gun emplacements, and lines of covered trenches on every hand. The British forces began the movement about midnight, delivering the assault from two sides. A division of Midland Territorials advanced from the southwest over the ground between Pozieres and Ovillers. About the same time an Anzac division advanced from the southeast. German defenses south of the village were rapidly cleared by the Midland "Terriers," who then occupied a line in the outskirts of the village extending toward Thiepval. To the Australian troops which had displayed such valor at Gallipoli was assigned the most difficult task in this assault, for there was first a sunken road heavily organized to capture which ran parallel with the highway, then a strong line of trenches, and finally the highway itself which ran through the center of the village in a direct line.