At first on this section of the line the most furious fighting was on the right, along the Marne-Rhine canal, round Haraucourt and Dombasle, which, on the 22nd, was actually occupied for a time by the enemy, though they were quickly driven out and forced to retire on the heights and woods of Crévic. The next day there was the same kind of give-and-take struggle along the ridge north of the Dombasle-Lunéville road, round the farm of Léomont, and along a front north and south of it, from Crévic to the forest of Vitrimont. On the 25th, still a little further north, between Drouville and Courbesseau, a strong German position was attacked by five French regiments. For some reason, however, they were not properly supported by their artillery, and suffered severely, one regiment losing sixty-five per cent. in killed and wounded. But, although for the time being that particular attack failed and had to be given up, the general run of the battle, all through the last week of August and the first few days of September, was slightly but surely in favour of the French. That, always bearing in mind the disastrous retreat which it followed, was the amazing wonder of it. It is true that the final retreat of the Germans to the frontier did not take place till September 12th, when the Battle of the Marne had been won, and that the movement to their rear of the Crown Prince of Bavaria’s and von Heeringen’s armies was therefore in a sense part of the general retirement of the whole German line with which it coincided. But it is also true that on the day when the Battle of the Marne began, at the end of that first fortnight of fierce charge and counter-charge, in the forests and hedgeless fields and ruined and smoking villages of Lorraine, the enemy, though they were still there, had been beaten almost to a standstill. That, at least, was the case on September 5th along the whole right half of the front, north and south of the Meurthe, from Gerbéviller through the forest of Vitrimont, past Crévic as far as Haraucourt. Further north it was a few days later before the attack was finally rolled back. The batteries of Amance drew the German battalions like a magnet, and it was here and in the forest of Champenoux that the final fury of the assault spent itself.