The Allies on the Western Front during the past week
continued to improve their lines by small local attacks, while waiting for the resumption of the German offensive. Early last Sunday morning the Australians attacked on a two-mile front to the south of the Ancre, south of Albert, and captured the village of Ville-sur-Anere, with three hundred and sixty prisoners and twenty machine-guns. The same night, in Flanders, the French attacked on a two-mile front east of Locre towards Mont Kemmel, gained a good deal of ground, and took over four hundred prisoners. On Monday night, also in the Flanders battle-zone, the Surreys pinched off a salient in the enemy line north-west of Merville, on the border of the Nieppe Wood, which bars the way to Hazebrouck. The Surreys
took thirty prisoners and six machine-guns, and effectively," as Sir Douglas Haig says, with those Germans who, in the course of a fierce counter-attack on Tuesday, contrived to penetrate our barrage fire and reach their lost trenches.
