The fights
among the infantry were characterized on the entire front by an
alternation of failure and success, every point being taken, lost
and retaken at intervals.
The struggle attained to especial violence in the Champenoux Forest.
On September 5, 1914, the enemy won Maixe and Remereville, which
they lost again in the evening, but they were unable to dislodge
the French from the ridge east of the forest of Champenoux. The
Mont d'Amance was violently bombarded; a German brigade marched
on Pont-a-Mousson. The French retook Crevic and the Crevic Wood.
On the 7th the Germans directed on Ste. Genevieve, north of the Grand
Couronne, a very violent attack, which miscarried. Ste. Genevieve
was lost for a time, but it was retaken on the 8th; more than 2,000
Germans lay dead on the ground. The same day the enemy threw themselves
furiously on the east front, the Mont d'Amance, and La Neuvelotte.
South of the Champenoux Forest the French were compelled to retire;
they were thrown back on the ridge west of the forest. On the 9th a
new bombardment of Mont d'Amance, a struggle of extreme violence,
took place on the ridge west of the forest of Champenoux, the French
gaining ground. General Castelnau decided to take the direct offensive,
the Germans giving signs of great fatigue. On the 12th they retired
very rapidly. They evacuated Luneville, a frontier town, where they
left a great quantity of arms and ammunition.
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