 The original offensive on 24 September had been intended to force a decisive breach in the German lines, but despite some early success this had proved to have been beyond the British.The aims of the second offensive were scaled back to 'skirmishing for local advantages', as Robert Graves, a veteran of Loos, put it.Chief among these was the Hohenzollern Redoubt, a small but strategically vital hill in the otherwise pancake-flat countryside around Loos.