 The left flank battalion advanced before machine-gun fire forced it back to the start line.All of the Fifth Army attacks encountered deep mud, which slowed progress to a crawl, caused the barrage to be lost and clogged weapons, in the face of German counterattacks, which forced most attacks back to their start lines.To the south of the Canadian Corps, in the X Corps area, two brigades of the British 5th and one of the 7th Division conducted diversionary attacks.