British troops south of the Bapaume-Cambrai road slowly advanced on Marcoing, a place of considerable importance and an outpost to Cambrai. In this push, begun on April 20, 1917, they captured the southern portion of the village of Trescault, which lies about nine miles from Cambrai. They also surrounded on three sides Havrincourt Wood, which from its high position constitutes a formidable barrier in the way of advance, and which the Germans will eventually be forced to evacuate. Ground was also gained by the British between Loos and Lens, and every attempt made by the Germans to regain lost positions was repulsed. On the French front in western Champagne the Germans on the 21st made desperate efforts to recapture the positions on the heights which they had lost in the previous week. Mont Haut, the dominating position in this region, was the principal objective against which they launched repeated attacks, all of which came to naught. There were numerous minor operations on the Rheims-Soissons front during the night of the 21st. Rheims was repeatedly bombarded, the Germans paying particular attention to the cathedral, which received further damage from shells. What might be termed the second phase of the battle of Arras was begun in the morning of April 23, 1917, when the British resumed the offensive. At 5 o'clock in the morning the British advance started east of Arras on a front of about eight miles, capturing strong positions and the villages of Gavrelle and Guemappe. The occupation of these places and of strongholds south of Gavrelle as far as the river Scarpe broke the so-called Oppy line, defending the Hindenburg positions before Douai. The British were successful in clearing the enemy out of the neighborhood of Monchy, which commands the region for forty miles. The Germans appreciating the value of this position had launched twenty counterattacks against it in the ten previous days. It proved to them the bloodiest spot in all this war-ravaged region, and when the British advanced at early dawn on the 23d, thousands of dead in field-gray uniforms littered the approaches to the position. During the day the British took over 1,500 prisoners. On this date, April 23, 1917, the Germans attacked the French lines in Belgium at several points in the course. Bodies of Germans succeeded in penetrating some French advanced positions, but after spirited hand-to-hand struggles were killed, captured, or driven off. In most cases the Germans never got in touch with the French, but were rolled back by the concentrated fire of the French artillery. Fighting continued in the Champagne, where the Germans renewed again and again their efforts to capture the new French positions on Mont Haut. On the second day of the offensive the British had made gains east of Monchy, and had pushed on between that village and the river Sensee to within a short distance of Cherisy and Fontaine-les-Croisilles, holding all their newly won positions against attack.