Marshal Foch's plan to give the enemy no rest day or night, and to follow up each blow by another, a plan which had resulted in great victories for the Allies and constant demoralization of the forces of the enemy, continued to be the order of the day. The British, operating on a thirty-mile front, unceasingly hammered Crown Prince Rupprecht's armies, striking suddenly at different points, and always advancing in spite of the most determined opposition. The Third and Fourth British Armies under Generals Byng and Rawlinson made important gains on August 22-23, 1918. It was a day of disaster for the Germans, whose desperate attempts to check the British advance resulted only in frightful losses of men and accomplished nothing. Prince Rupprecht sacrificed his troops recklessly in an effort to stave off the inevitable. The British guns swept the Germans from the field, or crushed them as they tried to force their way forward. One entire German battalion was annihilated during the fighting. General Byng made an advance of two miles to the neighborhood of Grandcourt, east of the Ancre. Gomiecourt and four other villages were carried by storm. To the north the British captured Achiet-le-Grand, which is on the Arras-Albert railroad, and for the possession of which Germans and British had been fighting for some days past. Field Marshal Haig's armies continued to deal the German forces staggering blows as they drove forward. Bray, on the northern bank of the Somme, was captured on August 23, 1918. Thiepval, a strong position on high ground and which dominated miles of territory, was occupied by British forces after a hard struggle and against the concentrated fire of countless machine guns. Miraumont, in the center of the battle front and to which the Germans clung with desperate energy, was now surrounded on all sides and its fall was only a question of a few hours. The British were now driving ahead in the direction of Bapaume, and on the 23d occupied a small town on the outskirts. Croisilles, north of Mory, some miles east of the Arras-Bapaume road, was also won, marking the extreme point of the British advance for the day in the northern battle zone. North of the river Scarpe the fighting was intense. The British, despite stiff opposition, penetrated the old German line and made important gains when they attacked Givenchy. The Germans fought bravely, contesting every yard of ground, but it was a losing battle, and the field was littered thickly with their dead. They had brought up new divisions that were thrown into the fight, but the reenforcements were unable to check, except temporarily, the Allies' continuous push forward. On the French front General Mangin's troops had crossed the Oise and reached the outskirts of the village of Morlincourt, a mile and a quarter from the railway station of Noyon. The fall of that place within a short time was inevitable.