Rupprecht wrote in his diary that the recapture of the north end of Sailly was needed to regain artillery observation but that this would have to wait for the arrival of the XV Corps (General Berthold von Deimling) with the 30th and 39th divisions. Below and the commander of the IX Reserve Corps, General Max von boehn, had agreed that the power of resistance of the Germans on the Somme was much reduced and that officer casualties meant that it could not be increased. The French First Offensive Battle of Verdun temporarily stopped the flow of reinforcements to the Somme front but substantial artillery and air reinforcements were already on the Somme. The decline in the power of the Anglo-French artillery caused by poor weather and attacks on artillery-observation machines, enabled the German infantry to mount a costly but successful defence, helped by the knowledge that the onset of winter would end the battle.