During the last week of the German occupation only one regiment was allowed in the city and this was chiefly to pillage, as the troops defending the place were holding positions outside. Many houses were looted, especially on the night before the British stormed the outskirts. The German officers were especially eager for souvenirs which took the form of valuable paintings cut from the frames, and which they found in houses of the better class. The German Government had been hard, and there were fines for the slightest infraction of rules, which increased in severity as the enemy needed money. Trivial offenses at first were punished by a hundred marks fine, but in the last days of German occupation it was raised to two thousand marks. While the British were driving forward on the Valenciennes front the American army was winning laurels north of Verdun, where they smashed the Freya Line and put the Germans to rout. The advance on this difficult front was intended to cut the German line of communications. This was achieved. On the left of the Americans the French Fourth Army was in hot pursuit of the Germans who were fleeing across the Argonne Forest. The French smashed the enemy's rear guards, who attempted to delay the advance, and made important progress along the whole line of attack. On the left Semuy was taken and the French lines were carried as far as the southern bank of the Ardennes Canal. To the south Bois Vandy and the village of Balay were cleared of Germans, who fought desperately but were unable to delay for more than a few hours the irresistible advance of the French troops. On the right Longwe and Primat were occupied. North of the last-named place the French pushed on past Chêne Pâté and despite that formidable obstacle, the Argonne Forest, continued to pursue the Germans, whose retreat was so hurried that they left large quantities of material on the field which they had not found time to destroy. In the course of this advance the French captured over 1,400 prisoners. South and east of Valenciennes, where the Germans had established positions, the British on November 2-3, 1918, were fighting their way forward, driving back the enemy rear guards and taking prisoners. Field Marshal Haig's troops won another notable victory on November 4, 1918, when attacking on a thirty-mile front between the Scheldt and the Oise-Sambre Canal, with the French cooperating on the right, a drive was made into enemy positions and over 10,000 Germans and 200 guns were captured. The British drive, in which troops of the First, Third, and Fourth Armies participated, resulted in the capture of Landrécies south of the Mormal Forest, Catillon, and a considerable number of smaller towns, and advanced the British lines more than three miles to the east of the Oise-Sambre Canal. North of this stream, in the great Mormal Forest, the British won strongly fortified positions and advanced to the center of the wood.