After the Second Battle of Champagne in 1915, construction of a third line another back from the had been begun in February 1916 and was nearly complete on the Somme front by 1 July. Divisional sectors north of the Albert–Bapaume road were about wide. German artillery was organised in a series of (barrage sectors). A telephone system was built with lines buried deep, for behind the front line, to connect the front line to the artillery. The Somme defences had two inherent weaknesses which the rebuilding had not remedied: The first was that the front trenches were on a forward slope, lined by white chalk from the subsoil and easily seen by ground observers. The second was that the defences were crowded towards the front trench, with a regiment having two battalions near the front-trench system and the reserve battalion divided between the and the second line, all within of the front line, accommodated in the new deep dugouts.