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As a result, the two flanking units, neither really aware of the other's existence, collided with each other on October 1. The 10th Army initially made significant progress, pressing to and a short distance east of Douai and repulsing units of the I Bavarian Reserve Corps, but the following day, as more units arrived, the Germans regained the initiative and were able to capture Douai and a number of French prisoners, along with the high ground east and northeast of Arras. Over the next two days, the fighting shifted ever farther to the northwest, as the Sixth Army advanced into the Arras suburbs and seized both the city of Lens and the prominent Vimy Ridge to the north, but suffered heavy casualties in the process and were unable to break through to Arras itself.
As a result, the two flanking units, neither really aware of the other's existence, collided with each other on October 1. The 10th Army initially made significant progress, pressing to and a short distance east of Douai and repulsing units of the I Bavarian Reserve Corps, but the following day, as more units arrived, the Germans regained the initiative and were able to capture Douai and a number of French prisoners, along with the high ground east and northeast of Arras. Over the next two days, the fighting shifted ever farther to the northwest, as the Sixth Army advanced into the Arras suburbs and seized both the city of Lens and the prominent Vimy Ridge to the north, but suffered heavy casualties in the process and were unable to break through to Arras itself.
The dwindling of the action around Arras, from October 4 onward, was immediately followed by back-and-forth combat around the major industrial city of Lille farther north, which the French occupied on the 4th (using mostly Territorial soldiers from their overseas colonies), but were eventually pushed out by the Germans after a week of close-quarters fighting in which Lille suffered significant damage. The loss of the city, which finally fell on October 12, was a significant but not a fatal blow to the French war economy.
==References==
==References==