Over the whole attacking front our troops penetrated into the first German trench. But subsequently the progress was no longer uniform. While certain units continued their forward movement with extreme rapidity, others came up against machine guns still in action and either stopped or advanced only with difficulty. Some centres of the German resistance maintained their position for several hours and even for several days. [Sidenote: Outline of advance in Champagne.] [Sidenote: The battle a series of assaults.] A line showing the different stages of our advance in Champagne would assume a curiously winding outline, and would reveal on the one hand the defensive power of an adversary resolved to stick to the ground at all costs and on the other the victorious continuity of the efforts of our troops in this hand-to-hand struggle. The battle of Champagne must be considered in the light of a series of assaults, executed at the same moment, in parallel or convergent directions and having for their object either the capture or the hemming in of the first German position, the units being instructed to reform in a continuous line before the second position. [Sidenote: Unity of the action.] In order to understand the development, the terrain must be divided into several sectors, in each of which the operations, although closely co-ordinated, assumed, as a consequence either of the nature of the ground or of the peculiarities of the enemy defences, a different character. The unity of the action was nevertheless ensured by the simultaneity of the rush, which carried all the troops beyond the first position, past the batteries, to the defences established by the enemy on the heights to the south of Py. [Sidenote: At extremities offensive does not progress.] At the two extremities of our attacking front, subjected to converging fires and to counter-attacks on the flanks, our offensive made no progress. The fighting which took place in Auberive and round about Servon were distinguished by more than one trait of heroism, but they were destined to have no other result than that of containing the forces of the enemy and of immobilising him at the wings while the attack was progressing in the centre. [Sidenote: Position from Auberive to Souain a triangle.] [Sidenote: Wire checks the attackers.] [Sidenote: Gains maintained.]