and the 8th Bedfordshire Regiment, gained some ground and gave us between forty and fifty prisoners.
By this time continuous fighting, under very trying weather conditions, had exhausted the 16th Infantry Brigade.

In order to maintain the pressure it became necessary to withdraw battalions from the front of the other brigades and to put them straight in on the offensive front, replacing them by the battalions withdrawn from that front.
An attack by the 14th D.L.I.on the 21st April in conjunction with the left of the 46th Division, who by this time had relieved the 24th on the right of the 6th Division, yielded thirty-five prisoners and two machine-guns, and disposed of a strong machine-gun nest on the Double Crassier Railway which had been holding up our right.

Two counter-attacks were repelled, and on the 22nd April the 14th D.L.I.
and the 11th Essex Regiment delivered a combined attack.

The 14th D.L.I.secured the whole of their objective, with forty-six prisoners and three machine-guns, but the 11th Essex Regiment was unable to gain any ground.

The 46th Division had been prevented by uncut wire from co-operating in the attack, with the result that the 14th D.L.I., after enduring a very heavy bombardment with exemplary determination, were eventually sniped and machine-gunned out of the captured line from the houses on their right.