The Germans were not permitted to hold either Seicheprey or the Remières Wood. Without a moment's delay the Americans and French organized a counterattack and drove them out of the village. It was found that the retreating Germans had set traps there in the form of boxes containing high explosives to which they had attached wires stretched across the streets. Some of the advancing troops stepped on the wire, causing explosions and the traps had to be removed. Before dawn of the next day the Franco-American forces had not only recovered the village but forced the enemy back to the hilltop above it. The battle circled about the brow and slope of the hill on which Seicheprey stood and the wood of Remières at its foot. The Germans returned to the charge with forces estimated at three battalions, led by storm troops. Two hours' hard fighting followed. Finally, the Americans, supported, as before by the French from an adjoining sector, now drove the Germans down the slope into Remières Wood, already held by the foe, and fought them among the trees all the morning. Toward noon the Allies swept forward irresistibly and retook the wood completely. Fighting stubbornly, the Germans were pushed back beyond the wood's eastern fringe to their own trenches, where they endeavored to maintain themselves. But a new Franco-American advance, combined with pressure from the flank, forced them to retreat, and by evening they had retired to the original starting point, and the American line was completely reestablished. It was the first time the Germans had met the Americans in serious fighting on a scale which removed the engagement from the category of small skirmishes in local operations, and apart from the ultimate result, which was a defeat for the Germans, they learned something of the quality of Americans, both as massed and individual fighters. North of Seicheprey an American detachment was separated into small groups and was cut off from the company to which it belonged throughout the entire fight. Behind the Americans and on their left flank were German units, but they could have retired on the right. They decided to fight, which they did notwithstanding the incessant enemy bombardment and rifle fire. Numerous hand-to-hand combats were fought in the course of this long struggle, from which the Americans found themselves obliged to retire toward nightfall, but only after destroying their machine guns. In Seicheprey a squad of Americans found several cases of grenades, with which they made a determined fight, holding out the entire day on the northern extremity of the village. They refused to surrender when summoned to do so, and at the end of the fighting only nine out of the original twenty-three were left. A cook surprised by the Germans, and half stunned by a blow from a grenade, seized a rifle and continued firing until he fell dead.