[Illustration: THE ENTRANCE TO DOUAUMONT FORT IN JANUARY, 1916.]
From the 19th to the 22nd French heavy guns bombarded the fort, the explosion of a shell on the 20th causing hundreds of victims. To hamper the enemy Intelligence Service six of their observation balloons were destroyed by a French flying squadron on the morning of the 22nd. At 11.50 the 10th Brigade (5th D.I.) attacked the fort and its approaches. At noon the 129th line regiment occupied the N. and N.W. corners of the fort. The 74th regiment was unable to take the N.E. corner, but the 36th succeeded in capturing all the trenches west of the Fort. During the night and all the next day the enemy intensified their bombardment and increased the number of their counter-attacks, without breaking through the defences of the 10th Brigade, which maintained all its gains until relieved on the night of the 23rd. Exasperated at this check, the Germans, on the 24th, engaged no less than an army corps of reinforcements and retook the fort.
[Illustration: THE INTERIOR OF THE FORT ON MAY 22ND, 1916, THREE HOURS AFTER THE ATTACK.
French Infantry and Sappers in a trench hurriedly made around an outwork of masonry still held by the enemy with machine-guns.]
Five months later (October 24th) they lost it again after a heavy bombardment and attack, during which a French 16-inch shell pierced the superstructure of the fort and started a fire. A dense fog overhung the fort when, at 11.40 a.m., the signal for the attack, directed by General Mangin, was given. When, at about 2.30 p.m. the fog lifted, French observers perceived the Moroccan Colonials of the Nicolaï battalion scaling the ruins of the fort. On arriving there, the latter found units of the 321st line regiment which, operating _in liaison_ on their right, had preceded them and already hoisted the French flag on the ruins of the fort. Two sappers of the 19-2 Co. of Engineers slipped into the basement of the fort, and with the aid of four Colonials captured twenty-four German soldiers, four officers, two guns and three machine-guns in one of the counter-scarp shelters. Other enemy soldiers in one of the casemates surrendered, with the German commander of the fort, on the night of the 24th. The next morning the entire fort, together with a great quantity of arms, munitions and foodstuffs, was in the hands of the French. Four enemy counter-attacks on the 26th failed to retake it.