On the French front there was continuous activity. Every time that the German press gave notice to its public that the French military power was waning and had become a negligible factor in the war the indomitable Gauls by some dashing attack gave evidence that they were very much alive and had no thought of surrender. For some days the French in the Verdun sector had been busy every day in beating off German attacks, but on September 8, 1917, they assumed the offensive on the right bank of the Aisne and occupied important positions on a front of a mile and a half, capturing during the advance over 800 prisoners. Assaults on the French lines east of Rheims and on the Aisne front resulted in crushing German defeats. At almost every point the French wall of defense held firm, and against it the seasoned troops of the kaiser, who lacked neither persistence nor bravery, dashed themselves in vain. CHAPTER III LENS IN RUINS--BRITISH ADVANCE NEAR YPRES French positions on the right bank of the Meuse north of Verdun were attacked by strong German forces in the morning of September 9, 1917. The assault was delivered over a front of about two miles on both sides of Hill 344. In one section of the line the Germans succeeded in gaining a temporary foothold. By a vigorous counterattack made a little later the French drove them out and captured fifty prisoners. This smashing blow had cost the Germans dearly, for they left over 1,000 dead on the battle field. On this date (September 9) the British forces carried out successful local operations southeast of Hargicourt, when Northumberland troops carried by storm 600 yards of German trenches and took fifty-two prisoners. East of Malakoff Farm the British attacked and won after heavy fighting a strip of hostile trenches which was much needed to round out their lines in that sector. German prisoners captured around Lens spoke of the awful havoc wrought by the British gas cylinders and gas shells. The German First Guards Reserve Regiment lost twenty men when a gas shell exploded in the cellar where they lay asleep. Another company of this regiment had seventeen casualties from the same cause in one day. The failure of Germany to get a sufficient supply of rubber was a contributing cause of the gas fatalities. German masks were of poor quality and tore easily. Masks of soft leather were used by them at this time on some parts of the Lens front. The objection to masks of leather was that they could not be put on as easily as those made of rubber, a serious defect when a moment's delay might prove fatal. Northumberland troops operating in the neighborhood of Villaret extended their gains southward 400 yards in an attack made on German trenches in the morning of September 11, 1917. During the day the Germans attempted three counterattacks with bombs on the new British positions but were driven off.