1 DECEMBER 1917, Page 13

The French have made a fresh advance north of Verdun,

on the right bank of the Meuse. They attacked last Sunday afternoon along a front of two miles from the river-bank at Samogneux to the south of the Carnes Wood, and captured the first and second German lines, taking over eight hundred prisoners. The effect was to clear the northern slopes of Hill 344, one of the chief bastions of the Verdun defences. The French line to the right of the Meuse is now almost identical with the line which the enemy attacked in February, 1918. All the German sacrifices on these blood-soaked ridges have been made in vain.