The Belgians were bombarded with asphyxiating gas bombs beyond the French lines south of Dixmude. The Germans charged the Belgian trenches only to be cut down by machine-gun fire. That night, the night of May 3, 1915, an attack was made on the British front; but it was stopped by the artillery. Sir Herbert Plumer in the meantime had been executing the order he had received from Sir John French, and shortened his lines so they were three miles less in length than before starting the movement. The new line extended from the French position west of the Ypres-Langemarck Road and proceeded through "shell-trap" farm to the Haanebeek and the eastern part of the Frezenberg ridge where it turned south, covering Bellewaarde Lake and Hooge and bent around Hill 60. This resulted in leaving to the Germans the Veldhoek, Bosche, and Polygon Woods, and Fortuin and Zonnebeke. This new front protected all of the roads to Ypres, and, at the same time, it was not necessary to employ as many soldiers to hold this line. Moreover the defenders of it could not be fired upon from three sides as long as they held it. In some places the British and German trenches had been no more than ten yards apart, but the difficulty of evacuating the British position was completed in safety on the night of May 3, 1915. The work included the taking with them 780 wounded. Sharpshooters were left in the trenches, however, and they maintained such an appearance of activity and alertness that the Germans kept on shelling the trenches all of the following day. The attempt of General Putz to force the Germans back across the Yperlee Canal on May 4, 1915, was stopped by a combination of machine guns, asphyxiating gas and fog. Then the French spent the next ten days in tunneling to Steenstraate. Their tunnels toward their objective point were through that territory between Boesinghe and Lizerne. On May 5, 1915 the Germans made a careful advance on the British front under the cover of fog and a heavy bombardment, to find only that the British position had been changed. But they intrenched opposite the new alignment, and brought up their big guns. Then they used poisonous gas again with the result that the British retreated and the Teutons followed, in spite of the many men who fell because of the accurate work of the British artillery. The greater part of this action took place around Hill 60, and some of the British trenches to the north of the hill were captured by the Germans. They then penetrated toward Zillebeke to the supporting line. Up to midnight the Germans seemed to be victorious; then, however, the British drove them from the hill only to be driven away in turn by the use of asphyxiating gas. On the following day the Teutons held Hill 60 and some of the trenches north of it.