On the same day that the French were advancing in the Verdun sector the Canadians around Lens were winning fresh laurels. Northwest of the city they had by desperate fighting established strong posts among the trenches and railway cuttings that formed the last line of German defense in that quarter. This was the scene of much strenuous but indecisive fighting two days before. From their new positions the Canadians had now command of the last bit of ground from which the defenders of the city could overlook the advance from the west. They were now in a hollow all around the front which swings about Lens in a semicircular form. As every eastern exit to the city was now subjected to a continuous and harassing fire from machine guns and artillery, the work of bringing up provisions and supplies of ammunition had become extremely hazardous. The Canadians in their continued struggle around Lens had displayed such irresistible courage and resolution that their deeds will long be remembered in the pages of history. No soldiers during the war faced more difficulties or confronted more formidable defenses. They forced their way through streets entangled with hedges of steel and houses bristling with machine guns. They penetrated tunnels too strong to be touched by shell fire. They threw themselves against fortress positions amid a fiery hail of shells and explosives. They swept through the towns of St. Laurent, St. Théodore, and St. Emilie to the north and west of Lens where sunken roads and slag heaps were strongly fortified, and so on through the apparently endless and formidable defenses to the western streets of the inner city. The Germans never let a day pass without at least one attack on the Canadian positions, and once within twenty-four hours they launched no less than seven strong assaults. Between the attacks the men of Canada were subjected to a heavy gunfire from a wide semicircle of strong batteries. Between August 10 and August 20, 1917, they were attacked in turn by six German divisions, each being shattered by the Canadians' dogged courage and amazing fighting power. These were the Seventh, Eighth, the Eleventh Reserve, the 220th and the First Guards Reserve Division. Besides those five divisions it was known that portions at least of the 185th Division and of the Sixth Reserve Division had also been engaged. It was conservatively estimated by military observers of the struggle here that the German strength used at Lens was upwards of 50,000 men, and their losses were estimated at between 12,000 and 15,000 men.