The Champagne-Loos-Artois-Offensive began on September 25, 1915 preceded by a 72-hour artillery bombardment.
Lichtwirkung des die große französische Offensive vorbereitenden siebzigstündigen Artillerie-Trommelfeuers und der Leuchtgranaten Ende September 1915.Light effect of the seventy-hour preparatory artillery barrage and the light grenades for the great French offensive at the end of September 1915.A379B.P. & Co. A.G.Illustraten ZeitungReverse:Message dated August 25, 1916
"The vibration of a gun-barrel after firing has tones that, to my ear, can be heard in the night air but not by day : so has the flight of a shell. Our heavies are less active to-day, but the Germans are shelling our rear with 4.2 and 5.9 to some purpose. In the afternoon I dropped into an artillery observation post to see the shoot. Our field batteries fire 1000 to 1200 rounds of shrapnel daily, wire-cutting. The shooting is remarkably good, but I did not like to hurt the gunner's feelings by saying how little sign there was of cut wire. Casualties are few yesterday; not 10 from the Brigade came through the dressing-station, deaths are fewer."
Entry for September 22, 1915 from the writings — diaries, letters, and memoirs — of Captain J.C. Dunn, Medical Officer of the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty-Third Foot, The Royal Welch Fusiliers. The Allies had begun their preliminary bombardment for the great allied autumn offensive of 1915. Although it was the heaviest Allied bombardment to that date, many of the guns were field artillery which did little against entrenchments or the men sheltered in them. The uncut wire, and the German machine guns behind it, would ensure the Anglo-French attacks would falter, failing to achieve the breakthrough so ardently desired.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, page 150, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
1915-09-22
