CHAPTER IXTHE WINTER CAMPAIGN

The Germans tried nineteen times to cross the Yser at one point; on each occasion they were repulsed by the Belgian and French troops, which were massed upon the opposite bank.It is said that the enemy lost whole regiments. A wounded German officer who was taken prisoner affirms that of his regiment, which went into action 2,000 strong, only eighty were left unscathed. While claiming that the Belgian and French had suffered big losses, he admitted that these were nothing in comparison to those sustained by the Germans. He added that it was not a battle, it was butchery! A peasant, who came through the German lines, reports that the enemy have no time to bury their dead singly, but are obliged to have them carried away in three-wheeled farm carts by the country people in loads of twenty to twenty-five, and removed to the rear of their positions for burial.The cross-fire from the British Fleet prevented the Germans from advancing along the coast, obliging them to throw pontoon bridges over the Yser. The pontoons sank time after time with their human burden, shattered by the shells of the Allies. It is no exaggeration to state that the Germans on the Yser alone up to date have lost 75,000 men killed and wounded, and this does not include the prisoners, who have been numerous. Over 8,000 of the enemy's wounded who were being brought to Bruges and Courtrai, via Thourout, were abandoned on Sunday last, and were obliged to make the ten-hour journey on foot.The churches of Thourout and in the neighbourhood, as well as all the farms which are still standing, are crammed with wounded. Hundreds of German wounded are streaming in day and night throughout the region behind the enemy's lines. In certain places close to the Yser between Nieuport and Dixmude the ground is literally covered with corpses of men and horses. The shrapnel from the British Fleet has caused more than three-parts of the slaughter in this particular direction. The scene is indescribable.

The Germans tried nineteen times to cross the Yser at one point; on each occasion they were repulsed by the Belgian and French troops, which were massed upon the opposite bank.

It is said that the enemy lost whole regiments. A wounded German officer who was taken prisoner affirms that of his regiment, which went into action 2,000 strong, only eighty were left unscathed. While claiming that the Belgian and French had suffered big losses, he admitted that these were nothing in comparison to those sustained by the Germans. He added that it was not a battle, it was butchery! A peasant, who came through the German lines, reports that the enemy have no time to bury their dead singly, but are obliged to have them carried away in three-wheeled farm carts by the country people in loads of twenty to twenty-five, and removed to the rear of their positions for burial.

The cross-fire from the British Fleet prevented the Germans from advancing along the coast, obliging them to throw pontoon bridges over the Yser. The pontoons sank time after time with their human burden, shattered by the shells of the Allies. It is no exaggeration to state that the Germans on the Yser alone up to date have lost 75,000 men killed and wounded, and this does not include the prisoners, who have been numerous. Over 8,000 of the enemy's wounded who were being brought to Bruges and Courtrai, via Thourout, were abandoned on Sunday last, and were obliged to make the ten-hour journey on foot.

The churches of Thourout and in the neighbourhood, as well as all the farms which are still standing, are crammed with wounded. Hundreds of German wounded are streaming in day and night throughout the region behind the enemy's lines. In certain places close to the Yser between Nieuport and Dixmude the ground is literally covered with corpses of men and horses. The shrapnel from the British Fleet has caused more than three-parts of the slaughter in this particular direction. The scene is indescribable.

Three times the Germans fought their way over through the cross fire of the Allied guns, ashore and afloat, and three times they were thrown back. The enemy's expenditure of ammunition was as prodigal as his expenditure of men.

Then began a systematic destruction which has had no parallel in modern war. The Germans set themselves to batter the country into ruins, they bombarded and wrecked not only Nieuport, Dixmude, and Ypres, but every village and hamlet within range of their guns. Of this, after having seen its effect, Mr. E. Ashmead-Bartlett said:

This part of Belgium, perfectly flat, is studded with picturesque old Flemish homes. Almost every village of any size possesses buildings of historic or architectural interest. The old church of Dixmude was one of the finest buildings of its kind in the countryside, and so also was the Hôtel de Ville. What remains of these buildings would not be worth the while to cart away as old bricks.As a machine of pure destruction the Kaiser's army is unique. I doubt whether any other army in the history of the world has had the knack of laying waste a whole country so completely. They wipe out everything.These towns and villages play no part in the defence of the Yser. They are merely shell-traps, where no general would think of placing his men.As a revenge on an innocent civil population, who thus lose their hearths and homes, and are now refugees all over France, Holland, and England, the plan succeeds admirably. On the other hand, the defence is materially aided, because the fire is taken off the troops in the trenches and on the long trains making their way to the front with food, ammunition, and supplies of all kinds. I do not believe the line of the Yser could have been held had the Germans scientifically supported their infantry attacks with this tremendous volume of shell fire, with which they have laid low Dixmude, Pervyse, Nieuport, and fifty other smaller towns and villages.

As a machine of pure destruction the Kaiser's army is unique. I doubt whether any other army in the history of the world has had the knack of laying waste a whole country so completely. They wipe out everything.

These towns and villages play no part in the defence of the Yser. They are merely shell-traps, where no general would think of placing his men.

As a revenge on an innocent civil population, who thus lose their hearths and homes, and are now refugees all over France, Holland, and England, the plan succeeds admirably. On the other hand, the defence is materially aided, because the fire is taken off the troops in the trenches and on the long trains making their way to the front with food, ammunition, and supplies of all kinds. I do not believe the line of the Yser could have been held had the Germans scientifically supported their infantry attacks with this tremendous volume of shell fire, with which they have laid low Dixmude, Pervyse, Nieuport, and fifty other smaller towns and villages.

The crowning act, however, of this "revenge," deliberately indulged in that the attention of the world might be drawn off the crushing disasters suffered by German arms, was the ruin of Ypres. That act of vandalism was not, it is necessary to remember, done during the battle or for any military purpose. It was begun after the battle, and when the issue, and with it the future history of Europe, had been for ever changed. Of what that ruin was there has been drawn by Mr. Luigi Barzini a picture of enduring reality. He was one of three civilians who visited Ypres while this bombardment was going on. His description appeared in theDaily Telegraphof December 2, 1914.

At a turn of the road, the town appeared in the distance—two mutilated campaniles, a ruin of massive towers, and the ancient belfry, with its vague bluish carvings. In the dull, declining day, the trees at the edge of the plain seemed like a dark mist. They formed, as it were, a sombre border of cloud on the horizon, and above the network of branches rose the remains of the bombarded town, pale and sinister, with something unreal and death-like in their mutilated aspect—phantasms of a massacred glory.At short intervals the air was shaken by the bombardment, and, urged by the wind, two clouds of white smoke fled between the trees and vanished amidst their branches. Two flashes of livid light burst on high, and for an instant the top of the towers disappeared in a cloud. The destructive fury of the German guns still continued to strike the heart of Ypres. The road had been converted into a desert.We had left behind us towns and villages crowded with troops, immense parks of carts and motor-lorries scattered over the meadows, extensive encampments at the edges of the road, in which the innumerable piles of arms seemed like black sheaves crowned with points, the general quarters of divisions and brigades denoted by standards. Then, having passed Vlamertynghe, about three miles from Ypres, we came upon the sinister solitude of a modern battle.There was no other voice, no other sound, than the boom of cannon and the crash of shell. But the flashes of the explosions seemed to render all the more evident, more profound, and more significant the terrible silence of the town and the fields. It was the silence of resignation, fear, and agony. The sound of our footsteps upon the muddy pavement of the suburb echoed amidst the little houses—the first houses of Ypres.Not one building remained intact. The hurricanes of steel had battered and penetrated them all.At one side of the street three wounded men were waiting for succour, having remained where they had fallen a few minutes before. They were poor inhabitants who had possibly been compelled by the need of obtaining food to come forth from some cellar. They did not call for assistance; they did not say a word, they did not even complain. Pale, stunned, suffering, and mute, they merely looked. The danger seemed to impose silence; there is an unconscious desire not to be heard, not to be discovered by the invisible and monstrous will to massacre which is in the air. Under the bombardment one had the vague impression of being searched for by death.There were three of us, and we walked in Indian file along the wall towards the famous Grande Place, which only a few days ago afforded one of the most precious and complete visions of the arts of the world.The route was not always easy. We had to avoid the holes which had been dug by the projectiles, to clamber over heaps of ruins, extricate ourselves from the labyrinths of innumerable fallen telephone wires, and every time we heard the voice of a shell we stopped immediately and irresistibly. We ceased to move with a strange and involuntary suddenness, like the automatic figures of the Three Kings in a Flemish clock when the last stroke of the hour sounds. Then, when an explosion had taken place, our mechanism was again set in motion, and we proceeded.A little forest of red crosses arose on the edge of the road in a glade; they marked a group of fresh graves in which lay inhabitants who had come out of their places of refuge only to meet with death. In the tragic silence any noise seemed to be enormously exaggerated.Long vistas of ruins were open at every side street—demolished walls, beams fallen from roofs or stretching across between one house and another, and broken doors. The stricken houses had launched their walls against the opposite buildings, and remained open, empty, unrecognisable.Having thus traversed the Rue d'Elverdinghe, which seemed as if it would never end, we entered the famous square, and for an indefinable time remained there at the corner, nailed as it were to the ground, stupefied and moved, full of admiration and grief and reverence, incapable of expressing our feelings, overcome by the grandeur and the sadness of that which we saw, intimidated by something that was both prodigious and sacred.We seemed to be disturbing the solemn mystery of an august end.The life of seven centuries, which was still palpitating yesterday, was being extinguished in a solitude of horror in the pallid twilight of a winter day.Gigantic and solemn above the mournful crowd of crumbling houses towered the monumental piles—torn, battered, devastated, but erect and still proud. Undermined by the blows of the shells, showing long cracks, breached and broken, the noble stone walls of the Halles, the Hôtel de Ville, and the Cathedral of St. Martin remained standing, indescribable in death, still stretching towards the sky their proud towers without bells and without pinnacles, hollowed at their bases as though by blows of a monstrous axe.We pointed to things with vague gestures, without being able to find words, and forgetting even to bend our backs when we heard the lamenting voice of the shells. None of us had ever seen Ypres, and together with the discouragement, caused by the vision of irreparable ruin, there was created in us the marvel of a revelation.For the love and devotion of innumerable generations there had kept intact on the earth a wonderful corner of the twelfth century, and we, arriving in front of this marvel, whilst it was dissolving, surprised the dream at a moment when it was vanishing for ever.All the rest of the world was plunged in the barbarism of the Middle Ages when the Flemish peace had Ypres for its centre. It was the wealthy and serious merchants of Ypres who created the Halles, the market of the world, the capital of business, the incomparable seat of commerce, the parliament of rulers and of people. Dante had not then been born, and already the Halles of Ypres were a century old.The love of Ypres gave to the Halles and to the old Grande Place a perennial youth. Ypres adored these eloquent and austere witnesses to her past, which told the story of her ancient power. She protected, defended them, never permitted the weight of centuries to do them any injury. Oppressed by famine and pestilence, the people of Ypres rebelled, sacked, and burned; but the Halles remained. The people of Ghent arrived in arms, their Allies the English arrived; they besieged Ypres, entered and laid waste; but the Halles remained. The Iconoclasts sacked the town, but the Halles remained. The Duke of Alba's troops arrived and persecuted Ypres—then fallen into decay—but the Halles remained. Alexander Farnese conquered the town and abandoned it to the excesses of his soldiery; but the Halles remained. Four times in one century the French took Ypres, but the Halles remained. They remained because the most brutal troops were conquered by their age and their potent grace. There was no passion, no ferocity that could resist such imposing severity and harmony. A respectful circle was formed, and the torch and the sword were lowered before that splendour of the past.But the butcher of ancient glories has come; the blind Teutonic cataclysm has fallen upon unarmed and tranquil Ypres, and the portentous life is now extinct. There remains nothing but the gigantic ruins, isolated walls, the corpses of monuments which preserve a sublime expression of disdainful power.The bells have fallen. The last hour they chimed was seven in the morning of Sunday, November 22.At a quarter past seven the belfry received its first mortal wound.But the first night, according to ancient usage, from the tumult of the august tower there descended upon Ypres—not yet completely deserted—the notes of the horn of the night watchman, who hour by hour sent to the four cardinal points the announcement that all was well!All around the gabled houses are abandoned in their last agony. They are those pointed houses, dwellings of a distant epoch, which give an ineffable impression of familiar calm and patriarchal life, buildings with faces inexpressibly benevolent, paternal, sweet and grave. Through the broken windows our gaze penetrates into corners which recall certain interiors of Flemish art.In these interiors, until yesterday, close to the windows, with their little leaded panes, the placid ladies of Ypres wove in traditional calm their arabesques of lace. Their agile and sapient fingers produced white, flowery patterns that were as light as foam. For Ghent had taken from Ypres the industry of its linens, England that of its cloths, Paris that of its damasks, but no country had had the power, the placidity, the patience, and the taste to imitate its lace. Here the old industry lived, modest and silent.The mediæval city slept its great sleep amidst the tumult of the outside world as if the Kasteelgracht and the Majoorgracht, the wide canals which encircle it and were its gates, were enchanted and had isolated it from swift innovations.

At short intervals the air was shaken by the bombardment, and, urged by the wind, two clouds of white smoke fled between the trees and vanished amidst their branches. Two flashes of livid light burst on high, and for an instant the top of the towers disappeared in a cloud. The destructive fury of the German guns still continued to strike the heart of Ypres. The road had been converted into a desert.

We had left behind us towns and villages crowded with troops, immense parks of carts and motor-lorries scattered over the meadows, extensive encampments at the edges of the road, in which the innumerable piles of arms seemed like black sheaves crowned with points, the general quarters of divisions and brigades denoted by standards. Then, having passed Vlamertynghe, about three miles from Ypres, we came upon the sinister solitude of a modern battle.

There was no other voice, no other sound, than the boom of cannon and the crash of shell. But the flashes of the explosions seemed to render all the more evident, more profound, and more significant the terrible silence of the town and the fields. It was the silence of resignation, fear, and agony. The sound of our footsteps upon the muddy pavement of the suburb echoed amidst the little houses—the first houses of Ypres.

Not one building remained intact. The hurricanes of steel had battered and penetrated them all.

At one side of the street three wounded men were waiting for succour, having remained where they had fallen a few minutes before. They were poor inhabitants who had possibly been compelled by the need of obtaining food to come forth from some cellar. They did not call for assistance; they did not say a word, they did not even complain. Pale, stunned, suffering, and mute, they merely looked. The danger seemed to impose silence; there is an unconscious desire not to be heard, not to be discovered by the invisible and monstrous will to massacre which is in the air. Under the bombardment one had the vague impression of being searched for by death.

There were three of us, and we walked in Indian file along the wall towards the famous Grande Place, which only a few days ago afforded one of the most precious and complete visions of the arts of the world.

The route was not always easy. We had to avoid the holes which had been dug by the projectiles, to clamber over heaps of ruins, extricate ourselves from the labyrinths of innumerable fallen telephone wires, and every time we heard the voice of a shell we stopped immediately and irresistibly. We ceased to move with a strange and involuntary suddenness, like the automatic figures of the Three Kings in a Flemish clock when the last stroke of the hour sounds. Then, when an explosion had taken place, our mechanism was again set in motion, and we proceeded.

A little forest of red crosses arose on the edge of the road in a glade; they marked a group of fresh graves in which lay inhabitants who had come out of their places of refuge only to meet with death. In the tragic silence any noise seemed to be enormously exaggerated.

Long vistas of ruins were open at every side street—demolished walls, beams fallen from roofs or stretching across between one house and another, and broken doors. The stricken houses had launched their walls against the opposite buildings, and remained open, empty, unrecognisable.

Having thus traversed the Rue d'Elverdinghe, which seemed as if it would never end, we entered the famous square, and for an indefinable time remained there at the corner, nailed as it were to the ground, stupefied and moved, full of admiration and grief and reverence, incapable of expressing our feelings, overcome by the grandeur and the sadness of that which we saw, intimidated by something that was both prodigious and sacred.

We seemed to be disturbing the solemn mystery of an august end.

The life of seven centuries, which was still palpitating yesterday, was being extinguished in a solitude of horror in the pallid twilight of a winter day.

Gigantic and solemn above the mournful crowd of crumbling houses towered the monumental piles—torn, battered, devastated, but erect and still proud. Undermined by the blows of the shells, showing long cracks, breached and broken, the noble stone walls of the Halles, the Hôtel de Ville, and the Cathedral of St. Martin remained standing, indescribable in death, still stretching towards the sky their proud towers without bells and without pinnacles, hollowed at their bases as though by blows of a monstrous axe.

We pointed to things with vague gestures, without being able to find words, and forgetting even to bend our backs when we heard the lamenting voice of the shells. None of us had ever seen Ypres, and together with the discouragement, caused by the vision of irreparable ruin, there was created in us the marvel of a revelation.

For the love and devotion of innumerable generations there had kept intact on the earth a wonderful corner of the twelfth century, and we, arriving in front of this marvel, whilst it was dissolving, surprised the dream at a moment when it was vanishing for ever.

All the rest of the world was plunged in the barbarism of the Middle Ages when the Flemish peace had Ypres for its centre. It was the wealthy and serious merchants of Ypres who created the Halles, the market of the world, the capital of business, the incomparable seat of commerce, the parliament of rulers and of people. Dante had not then been born, and already the Halles of Ypres were a century old.

The love of Ypres gave to the Halles and to the old Grande Place a perennial youth. Ypres adored these eloquent and austere witnesses to her past, which told the story of her ancient power. She protected, defended them, never permitted the weight of centuries to do them any injury. Oppressed by famine and pestilence, the people of Ypres rebelled, sacked, and burned; but the Halles remained. The people of Ghent arrived in arms, their Allies the English arrived; they besieged Ypres, entered and laid waste; but the Halles remained. The Iconoclasts sacked the town, but the Halles remained. The Duke of Alba's troops arrived and persecuted Ypres—then fallen into decay—but the Halles remained. Alexander Farnese conquered the town and abandoned it to the excesses of his soldiery; but the Halles remained. Four times in one century the French took Ypres, but the Halles remained. They remained because the most brutal troops were conquered by their age and their potent grace. There was no passion, no ferocity that could resist such imposing severity and harmony. A respectful circle was formed, and the torch and the sword were lowered before that splendour of the past.

But the butcher of ancient glories has come; the blind Teutonic cataclysm has fallen upon unarmed and tranquil Ypres, and the portentous life is now extinct. There remains nothing but the gigantic ruins, isolated walls, the corpses of monuments which preserve a sublime expression of disdainful power.

The bells have fallen. The last hour they chimed was seven in the morning of Sunday, November 22.

At a quarter past seven the belfry received its first mortal wound.

But the first night, according to ancient usage, from the tumult of the august tower there descended upon Ypres—not yet completely deserted—the notes of the horn of the night watchman, who hour by hour sent to the four cardinal points the announcement that all was well!

All around the gabled houses are abandoned in their last agony. They are those pointed houses, dwellings of a distant epoch, which give an ineffable impression of familiar calm and patriarchal life, buildings with faces inexpressibly benevolent, paternal, sweet and grave. Through the broken windows our gaze penetrates into corners which recall certain interiors of Flemish art.

In these interiors, until yesterday, close to the windows, with their little leaded panes, the placid ladies of Ypres wove in traditional calm their arabesques of lace. Their agile and sapient fingers produced white, flowery patterns that were as light as foam. For Ghent had taken from Ypres the industry of its linens, England that of its cloths, Paris that of its damasks, but no country had had the power, the placidity, the patience, and the taste to imitate its lace. Here the old industry lived, modest and silent.

The mediæval city slept its great sleep amidst the tumult of the outside world as if the Kasteelgracht and the Majoorgracht, the wide canals which encircle it and were its gates, were enchanted and had isolated it from swift innovations.

In the war between Germany and the Halles of Ypres, in the war between Germany and the Library of Louvain, between Germany and the cathedral of Rheims, it is not possible to remain neutral.

The first purpose of the Allies' scheme of military envelopment was to arrest and eventually to break the German offensive. Even after their losses in the battle of Ypres and the concurrent Battle on the Yser, the Germans still had on the West a superiority in numbers. The shock of those defeats was bitter. That is sufficiently proved by the proclamation which soon afterwards the Emperor of Germany issued to his troops. A cruel hour, he told them, had struck for them and for the Fatherland. He exhorted them to meet it with a greater determination. For a time Germany became a land of mourning. The German newspapers of this date, the later part of November, appeared day by day with pages of private obituary advertisements. The dream of conquest, except as regarded Belgium, was shattered, and it was realised that even to keep that country as a reward of what were called the sacrifices made, Germany would have to face a struggle to the death with Powers whose united superiority was now only too manifest.

That mood, however, soon passed, and feeling, directed at the outset of the war against Russia, was with a redoubled intensity excited against England. The reasons are not far to seek. Extraordinary efforts had become necessary, not only on the East to repair the disaster of the Battle of the Vistula, and to furnish General von Hindenburg with the forces for his great "drive" towards Warsaw, but to make good the wastage on the West.

It is a recognised axiom among military men that for such a scheme as the Germans had in view in France, the lowest superiority in numbers necessary is a proportion of four to three. Even that assumes equal training and equipment, and equal skill in leadership. The last factor, skill in leadership, which is in war the most difficult to estimate beforehand, is, at the same time, as this struggle has proved, tremendously important. In regard to it the odds were heavily against the Germans. The Battle of Ypres, it has become evident, was on their part a series of bad mistakes—mistakes which were not seen until too late. After the defeat at Reims Count von Moltke was removed from his place as Chief of the Staff and Baron von Falkenheyn appointed. The strategical scheme of Baron von Falkenheyn was sound and bold enough if Antwerp had not got into the way of it, and if, too, the tactical blunders of Ypres had not ruined its execution.

Besides defects in leadership, the Germans had to face the striking comparative deficiency of their field artillery, and the fact that their gunnery had not turned out so practically sound as that of the French. It followed that to resume the offensive they must have a superiority of even more than four to three. They had begun with a superiority of two to one. Yet through the unexpected skill in their opponents' leadership they had been foiled and had had their initiative wrested from them. In view, however, of the demands of the campaign on the East, this necessary weight of numbers they could not on the West supply. One resource was to make it up by an appeal to the spirit of the army. That took the form of an unusually liberal distribution of rewards for individual valour.

The Battle of Ypres had at one and the same time brought the second German plan of a Western offensive to the ground, and ensured the accomplishment of General Joffre's envelopment scheme. There was nothing now before the German Staff, therefore, but to attack that envelopment scheme while it remained, as they thought, still in its inceptive stages. If we turn to the day-to-day record of the operations as disclosed in the official reports we shall at once see that there was on the part of the enemy a series of attempted wedging movements. They tried by wedging to break the Allied front simultaneously at Roye and at Arras. This, had it been successful, would have forced out the section of the Allied front lying between those points, and have broken up the Allied position. The movement was not successful. Another movement of this kind was tried between La Bassee on the one side and the Yser on the other. This time the Germans did get a foothold on the west side of the Yser. They were driven out of it, however, by the Belgians cutting the dykes and flooding the country all along the lower course of the river. When the flood burst upon them large numbers of the enemy caught in their entrenchment diggings were drowned.14Many of their guns could not be recovered. A third of these wedging attempts was made between La Bassee and Arras. Though they led to desperate fighting, these efforts proved barren of result.

Let us turn to the side of the Allies. For them the first necessity was to solidify their front. If they could do that they would:

(1) Hold these German armies so that they would be able neither to advance nor to retreat whatever might be the developments of the war on the East front. That meant that the Germans must fight with divided forces, and feed the struggle on the East out of their last reserves.(2) Bring into fullest play the Allies' superiority in field guns, and by imposing on the enemy the necessity of constant counterattacks, eliminate in the end his advantage in numbers. The effects of this elimination would be that his power in any event of resuming the offensive would progressively disappear, and that, as the process proceeded, the advantage in numbers would pass to the Allied side, and eventually make an Allied offensive both practicable and successful.

(2) Bring into fullest play the Allies' superiority in field guns, and by imposing on the enemy the necessity of constant counterattacks, eliminate in the end his advantage in numbers. The effects of this elimination would be that his power in any event of resuming the offensive would progressively disappear, and that, as the process proceeded, the advantage in numbers would pass to the Allied side, and eventually make an Allied offensive both practicable and successful.

Now it is quite certain on the events which have since taken place that the German Headquarters Staff clearly recognised these possibilities. Not only is that shown by the heavy losses they incurred in the wedging battles, which lasted from the middle of November to early part of February, but in the adoption of tactics, designed, as their relative strength in numbers fell, to economise their force. In short, not being able to change the features of the situation, they made a virtue of necessity by trying as far as they could to convert their front into an impregnable barrier of defence, and concurrently doing their utmost to increase the Allies' losses.

Evidently both these means were calculated to delay the accomplishment of the Allied scheme. If at the same time there could be set on foot in the Allied countries the legend, not that the Germans had failed in their great invasion project, as they had, but that they were successfully withstanding an attempt of the Allied forces to push them back, then public opinion in the Allied countries might grow tired of the struggle, and at the finish withdraw from it, leaving Belgium in German hands. The Government of Germany well knew that in England more especially, where the misconception of military operations was profound, operations would be estimated on the, for the immediate purposes of this campaign, entirely false basis of a movement of the front from place to place. The object of the Allied commanders, and the conditions of a successful Allied advance would, in all probability, be alike misunderstood. Experience has shown that these calculations were only too well founded. The nearer the Allied scheme approached to accomplishment, the more energetic became the efforts to propagate the notion that it was a failure.

The German plan of defence, which may be dealt with first, had then, apart from political calculations, two main features. The first was the fortification along their front of advantageous points in such a manner that they could be permanently held. The second was an elaboration of the tactics of trench warfare.

From Ypres southwards to the spur of Notre Dame de Lorette near Arras the German front followed approximately the "inland coastline" already spoken of, and the only break in it geographically of any consequence was the valley of the Lys, the flat stretch lying between the hills south of Ypres and the spur at Aubers south-west of Lille.

On the promontories of this "coastline" the enemy proceeded to fortify themselves. They did the same at other points along their front and notably on the ridge across Champagne, and on the hills to the south-east of Verdun, as well as on the eastern spurs of the Vosges. Simultaneously in the trench warfare they revived grenade throwing, and the use of the trench mortar, expedients which had disappeared from military operations for 200 years. These devices were accompanied by systematic sniping. As skill with the rifle is not a strong point with the German army, a prismatic telescopic sight was invented. This reduced sniping practically to a mechanical trick. If the object fired at was centred on the prism a hit became a certainty—wind permitting. Sapping and mining were also persistently carried on, and the front became for mile after mile a monstrous network of pits, barbed-wire entanglements, electric alarm traps, and obstacles of every sort. In short, what the Germans lacked in comprehensive military skill they made up in laborious detail.

If now we glance at the activity of the Allies, we find that the hardest part of their work was that of solidifying their line in order in the first place to make it invulnerable against German counter-attacks. Those counter-attacks were, as we have seen, to begin with heavy. In support of them the advantage which the enemy then had in howitzers was utilised to the full. During the first weeks of the winter campaign the Allied troops had to hold trenches for the most part hastily made in the stress of battle, and hold them both against this prodigal bombardment with heavy German shells, and through bitter conditions of wet and cold. To reach their trenches along the flooded area in Flanders men had in some places to cross stretches of country on planks, the targets in coming and going for the enemy's shrapnel. The weather, too, was sometimes so severe that the water in the men's drinking bottles turned to ice. The trenches were frozen puddles.

Writing at this time the French "Eye Witness" said:

From the sea to the Lys the operations to the north of the Lys have become terribly difficult. The liquid and cold mud from which the men suffered invaded the breeches of the guns, so that they could no longer fire, and they had to fight with the butt-end of their rifles and with their fists. Our soldiers, according to the expression of one of their leaders, have become blocks of mud. The attempt has been successful to provide for them when they leave the trenches a proper bath and a complete change of linen, which they appreciate very much. Their unalterable good humour enables them to endure with the best possible grace the rough life which is imposed upon them.

A vivid impression of Flanders at this time (the end of November) has been recorded by Alice and Claude Askew, who as members of Dr. Hector Munro's Red Cross Ambulance Corps went to the front to distribute woollen comforters, cigarettes, coffee and chocolates:

Up at Furnes the cold was terrible. The picturesque old town has been shelled twice, but as yet no great damage has been done, and the doctors and nurses working up at the Field Hospital—once a college—are hoping that their hospital may be spared, for this hospital, with its hundred beds and capable band of workers, is doing splendid service.The patients are so cheerful. Those who are well enough smoke—how the soldier loves his "fag" and how lightly they take their injuries.Mr. Seeker was operating in the theatre—a patient had just been brought in from the trenches and immediate operation was necessary. A few oil lamps supplied the only illumination; the room was in complete shadow save round the operating table. Outside the wind howled and moaned, and firing could be heard in the distance. We felt very close to the naked heart of war.The drive back to Dunkirk a few hours later was a strange drive. The road has been broken and battered by the passing of countless military wagons, trodden down by marching feet, it has become a furrow, the plough of war has been over it. On either side gaunt trees lift up gaunt boughs; their branches look like skeleton fingers pointing to the sky, and they look like grim sentinels; the water is half frozen in the dykes.The whole thing seems unreal—the torn road—those blurred lines of men—the distant gun fire. The effect is that of a dream. We have seen the grim and terrible side of war—the bleeding side.The moon—a pale sickle moon—shines out of the dun sky—the cold becomes more intense every moment—more freezing.

The patients are so cheerful. Those who are well enough smoke—how the soldier loves his "fag" and how lightly they take their injuries.

Mr. Seeker was operating in the theatre—a patient had just been brought in from the trenches and immediate operation was necessary. A few oil lamps supplied the only illumination; the room was in complete shadow save round the operating table. Outside the wind howled and moaned, and firing could be heard in the distance. We felt very close to the naked heart of war.

The drive back to Dunkirk a few hours later was a strange drive. The road has been broken and battered by the passing of countless military wagons, trodden down by marching feet, it has become a furrow, the plough of war has been over it. On either side gaunt trees lift up gaunt boughs; their branches look like skeleton fingers pointing to the sky, and they look like grim sentinels; the water is half frozen in the dykes.

The whole thing seems unreal—the torn road—those blurred lines of men—the distant gun fire. The effect is that of a dream. We have seen the grim and terrible side of war—the bleeding side.

The moon—a pale sickle moon—shines out of the dun sky—the cold becomes more intense every moment—more freezing.

By continuous labour, however, the entrenchment system developed bit by bit into a vast underground military town. The fire trenches were connected by zigzag communication ways with supports trenches in the rear. From the latter opened the "dug-outs" which were the dwelling places of the men on trench duty. Made and furnished out of the wreckage of towns and villages, some of the "dug-outs" had doors and windows. Here and there the appointments of these underground quarters included desks and long-case clocks. Trench pumps were installed, and the troops provided with sheepskin coats. Entrenchment kitchens, too, were fitted up. The work of improvement went on in fact without a pause.

By day, where fighting was not in progress, these mazes of trenches seemed unutterable desolations of deserted silence. No sign of movement betrayed the thousands who were in them. At night, however, they were scenes of incessant activity. It was by night that entanglements were laid and defences strengthened. At night took place the changes and reliefs. From their billets in the cellars or lower stories of a ruined farm, the smashed windows barricaded with planks and sandbags, or from quarters in some deserted village or abandoned works, the reliefs moved across a country totally without lights, felt their way along lanes and roads pitted into craters by shells; navigated on planks and temporary bridges, ditches, streams, and canals; or crept under the shelter of partly demolished walls, until the rear communication ways into the trenches were reached. In this manner nearly all movements close to the firing line was made.

Acknowledgment too high can never be paid to the devotion and valour of the men who, through the weeks of an unusually dreary and bitter winter, both withstood the fury of the German attacks, and patiently day by day and night by night, solidified the barrier which was to consummate the enemy's ruin. Dangerous though it was the work may well have appeared unheroic. To some interpreters of public opinion at home it did appear unheroic. The soldiers' devotion, however, is a devotion to duty. This was, in his dispatch of November 20, well expressed by the British "Eye Witness."

It is difficult to do justice amid comfortable surroundings to the fortitude of those who day and night support the rigour of life in the trenches. It is true that everything is done for them which foresight and experience can suggest. It is true that by universal admission the rations are unlimited in amount and excellent in quality. But no attention and care can make trench life in winter anything but an extreme test of soldierly fortitude.It is a small thing that it is dangerous, for danger is the condition of a soldier's life; but it is monotonous, it is damp, it is insanitary, it is intolerably cold, and it is a strain upon the nerves. This war, more than any other, is one of unrecorded heroisms.

It is a small thing that it is dangerous, for danger is the condition of a soldier's life; but it is monotonous, it is damp, it is insanitary, it is intolerably cold, and it is a strain upon the nerves. This war, more than any other, is one of unrecorded heroisms.

Not only the British army, however, but the French and the Belgian armies had unshaken confidence in their leaders, and with good reason. In time the entrenched front became completely organised, a system of settled communications linked up by telephone wires in every direction. The French trenches formed a seemingly endless labyrinth. In Flanders along the Yser rats, driven out of their usual haunts and starving in the desolated country, took up their abode with the men in the dug-outs, and became domesticated and friendly.

To many whose ideas of war remained based on the marches and counter-marches of earlier campaigns it was puzzling to see armies of hitherto unheard of magnitude thus fortifying themselves against each other. Taken together the combatants numbered millions. Their diggings stretched over more than 500 miles of country. A vast amount of labour is needed to complete a modern entrenched post, yet such posts were to be counted along these lines not by thousands but by tens of thousands.

It has been stated that in face of the hugely multiplied power of modern firearms, and of the destructiveness of modern high explosives as used now in war, there is no alternative save for the fighting hosts of the present day to dig themselves in, and thus to remain locked in a deadly embrace. The explanation is crude. Like the astonishment called forth by this spectacle because it was unprecedented, the idea that all this represented merely a "deadlock" sprang from failure to grasp the realities of this gigantic struggle.

At the back of every operation of war there is a strategic purpose. In this instance, so far from there being no strategy in the so-called impasse, it was wholly dictated by strategy. So far from there being no manœuvres in it, it was nothing else, from the beginning, but a mighty series of manœuvres. They were modern manœuvres, not ancient, but that is all.

To every student of this campaign with a knowledge of military affairs, the strategy on both sides which brought about this situation has been clear. Let it be remembered that entrenchment economises force. The proposition presented to General Joffre was that of arresting and breaking the offensive of an enemy not only superior in numbers, but with traditions which led him to cling to and cherish the offensive as his chief instrument of victory. General Joffre therefore knew that the Germans would struggle to regain the offensive until their power to do so became too exhausted to keep up the effort. He knew further that in the position in which he had succeeded in placing them they must make that effort at a disadvantage, and that that advantage must grow rather than diminish. For these reasons it was that the labour of entrenching was undertaken by the Allied troops. No part of that labour was thrown away.

In enclosing the Germans in an entrenched front he so economised his force that it became, though less in number, equal to that of the enemy in power. The simple proof of that is that the Germans were unable to break the barrier. They did their utmost to break it. Their success or their failure in the war depended upon being able to break it. They sacrificed at Ypres, on the Yser, and in later battles more than half a million of men in the endeavour to break it. It remained firm against every assault.

Nor was the loss of life the only loss. These battles has led to a vast, and as it proved, wasteful expenditure of ammunition. Since the barrier could not be broken, the question now was how to render the envelopment scheme abortive by inflicting on the Allies losses which would delay or make impossible the offensive on the part of the Allies to which the scheme was designed to lead. Expedients to that end had to be devised more effective than the fire of heavy howitzers. They must also be less costly expedients. Thus hand grenades and trench mortars reappeared, and mechanical sniping. The reserve of shells with which Germany had begun the war was used up. Such munitions had to be employed more sparingly. Besides, owing to the scarcity of copper resulting from the British naval blockade, both the cost and the difficulty of manufacturing shells had immensely increased.

The German ordinary grenade was nothing more than the small iron bomb which had been used during the campaigns in Flanders in the seventeenth century. It was now filled with a charge of guncotton, and hurled into the hostile trenches by hand. Another variety had attached to the globe a short iron stump. This enabled the grenade to be stuck on to the muzzle of a rifle, and fired into the opposing trenches when the distance was too great to allow of the use of hand bombs. The trench mortar fired in the same way an iron globular bomb about a foot in diameter. The bomb was stuck on to the muzzle of the mortar by a short iron stump projecting from it, and filled with a heavy charge of nitro-glycerine, was fired at a high angle, so that it might fall right into a hostile trench and by the tremendous force of the explosion wreck it.

These projectiles, grenades and mortar bombs, were now turned out of the German arsenals in huge quantities. They were both much cheaper than shells, always a primary consideration in German warfare, and the mortar bombs required no copper driving bands.

In addition to these expedients mines were resorted to. Several blind saps—tunnels slightly below the surface—driven towards a hostile line of trench would be connected by a cross tunnel, and in this just in front of the trench the mines would be laid. At the moment chosen for attack they would be exploded from the German position by electricity, and a rush made to occupy the craters so formed. Yet another ruse was to drive an open sap—a narrow zigzag cutting—to a point commanding a hostile trench, and there instal a machine gun. For daring in these operations military distinctions were freely bestowed, and it is not surprising that in carrying them out many of the enemy displayed an audacious cunning.

When, however, we consider that the British and Belgians alike were much more expert riflemen, and that all three Allies as time went on steadily emphasised their ascendancy in artillery, the failure of these efforts of German perseverance to make up for the German want of military genius, was, it is not difficult to see, inevitable. The British troops improvised hand grenades out of army jam or beef tins. In grenade throwing they speedily became expert. Every German device was countered and improved upon. Parties engaged in mining met each other underground, and fought it out hand to hand. To diminish the losses arising from rifle and artillery fire, the larger German operations in this stage of the campaign were their night attacks. In these night battles the country before plunged in total darkness would suddenly present the spectacle of flights of star shells and flares, mingled with the play of searchlights, and the lurid flash of guns and rifles.

Attack and counter-attack, varied in every interval of clearer weather by artillery duels, went on during week after week. The lines round Ypres and to the west of Lille, more especially about La Bassee, remained among the main scenes of German activity.

Round Ypres the shot-torn and shell-ploughed woods became those melancholy and unapproachable "zones of the dead" where the German slain lay unburied, and many of the wounded had been left miserably to perish.

Frequent allusion has been made (the British "Eye Witness" wrote on November 20) to the losses of the enemy. Round Ypres we are continually finding fresh evidence of the slaughter inflicted. On November 15 one of our battalions, upon advancing discovered a German trench manned by seventeen corpses, while there were forty-nine more in a house close by. Next day a patrol discovered sixty dead in front of one trench, and fifty opposite another. In fact, all the farms and cottages to our front are charnel houses. The significance of such small numbers lies only in the fact that they represent the killed in a very small area.According to prisoners the German attempts to take Ypres have proved costly. One man stated that there were only fifteen survivors out of his platoon which went into action fifty strong; another reported that of 250 men who advanced with him only nineteen returned.It is believed that one Bavarian regiment, 3,000 strong, which left Bavaria for the front on October 19, had only 1,200 men left before the attack made along the Menin-Ypres road on November 14, when it again suffered severely. The plight of some of the units of the new formations is even worse. One regiment of reserve corps having but 600 men out of 3,000.If the period since the beginning of the war is considered the numbers are greater. For instance of the 15th Corps one regiment has lost sixty officers and 2,560 men, and another has lost 3,000 men. These figures include casualties of every kind—killed, wounded, and missing.

According to prisoners the German attempts to take Ypres have proved costly. One man stated that there were only fifteen survivors out of his platoon which went into action fifty strong; another reported that of 250 men who advanced with him only nineteen returned.

It is believed that one Bavarian regiment, 3,000 strong, which left Bavaria for the front on October 19, had only 1,200 men left before the attack made along the Menin-Ypres road on November 14, when it again suffered severely. The plight of some of the units of the new formations is even worse. One regiment of reserve corps having but 600 men out of 3,000.

If the period since the beginning of the war is considered the numbers are greater. For instance of the 15th Corps one regiment has lost sixty officers and 2,560 men, and another has lost 3,000 men. These figures include casualties of every kind—killed, wounded, and missing.

By dint of persistence the Germans succeeded in establishing on the west bank of the Yser a bridgehead at a point known as the Ferryman's Hut. They lost it, however, on November 27.

The action (says the French official account) was particularly brilliant. Several German trenches were carried in succession.The operation was one of the most arduous and difficult tasks which our troops have accomplished. The object was to drive from the left bank of the Yser the Germans who had succeeded in establishing themselves there for a length of over a mile.The difficulty in the attack lay in the fact that the canal was bordered by marshes which could not be crossed, and the only way of approach was along the bank and on a very narrow front. Moreover, the right bank, where the enemy had taken up his position, dominated the left bank, which was exposed to a machine-gun fire. The assault on the Ferryman's hut was delivered by a detachment of 100 volunteers from the African battalions.Our men fought knee deep in the water in a downpour of rain. The Germans displayed the greatest courage, and our men had to kill one officer and fifteen men who refused to surrender.In the ferryman's hut itself, which had been turned into a little fort, there were fifty-three lying dead, two of whom were officers. They had been killed by our 8·6 shells. Close by was the wreckage of their searchlight and their machine guns.

The action (says the French official account) was particularly brilliant. Several German trenches were carried in succession.

The operation was one of the most arduous and difficult tasks which our troops have accomplished. The object was to drive from the left bank of the Yser the Germans who had succeeded in establishing themselves there for a length of over a mile.

The difficulty in the attack lay in the fact that the canal was bordered by marshes which could not be crossed, and the only way of approach was along the bank and on a very narrow front. Moreover, the right bank, where the enemy had taken up his position, dominated the left bank, which was exposed to a machine-gun fire. The assault on the Ferryman's hut was delivered by a detachment of 100 volunteers from the African battalions.

Our men fought knee deep in the water in a downpour of rain. The Germans displayed the greatest courage, and our men had to kill one officer and fifteen men who refused to surrender.

In the ferryman's hut itself, which had been turned into a little fort, there were fifty-three lying dead, two of whom were officers. They had been killed by our 8·6 shells. Close by was the wreckage of their searchlight and their machine guns.

Across the Yser the Germans had tried to push their outposts westward as far as possible. Mr. A. Beaumont, special correspondent of theDaily Telegraph, gathered the story of one of these expeditions which reached a ruined village:

Amid the ruins the church alone was standing, though the belfry was demolished. A score of Germans on outpost duty had taken shelter in the church for the night. They found the sexton, an old man of more than seventy, and mercilessly flogged him because he would not or could not tell them where the enemy was.He crept out into the fields, found a French company concealed in some trenches, and told them his story. There was an instant rush of picked men into the village, the church was surrounded. The Germans taken by surprise hid in the choir, but to light up the place the old sexton found a bundle of straw, to which he set fire. As he held it up the Germans were slain on the spot.

He crept out into the fields, found a French company concealed in some trenches, and told them his story. There was an instant rush of picked men into the village, the church was surrounded. The Germans taken by surprise hid in the choir, but to light up the place the old sexton found a bundle of straw, to which he set fire. As he held it up the Germans were slain on the spot.

The efforts of the Germans were directed not only towards gaining a crossing over the Yser, but to driving the British out of the valley of the Lys. This it has already been noted was geographically a weak point in their front. Down the valley of the Lys, besides, lay the railway junctions of Menin and Courtrai, vital to the maintenance of their positions alike between the Lys and the sea, and from Lille to Arras. South of Ypres they had at length succeeded by sapping and mining in getting possession of the Kleine Zillebeke ridge, though they had been unable to capture it in the battle. At the same time they tried to push the British line westward from Lille. Repeated and desperate attacks were made on the British posts at Cuinchy and Givenchy. Cuinchy they captured. Later, however, the place was retaken, and with it a large depôt of German bombs and hand grenades. On January 25 the enemy, advancing from La Bassee in two powerful columns, made a furious effort to take Givenchy. Five assaults were delivered against that place. The first attack was in the nature of a surprise.

Unexpectedly in the cold and misty dawn the mass, brought up with secrecy during the night, surged from the German trenches. The British trenches were not more than 100 yards away. Across this space, ankle deep in mud, the attackers ploughed their way despite severe losses. The British trenches were taken, though not without a stiff fight. The resistance enabled the British supports to be called out. Charging into Givenchy village the Germans found themselves confronted at the end of the main street by these additional troops. The fire lasted only seconds. Without further ado the British dashed in with the bayonet. The clash was desperate. It was a melee of man to man. Not only bayonets were used. Many Germans were knocked out by British soldiers' fists. The remnant who could not get out of the village in time sought refuge in the houses. They were hunted out. One man broke into a house where eight Germans had sheltered themselves, bayonetted four, and made prisoners of the others.

With the defeat of this attack the British regained the trenches lost. The later attacks of the enemy never got home. A determined struggle was all this while being waged to the south of La Bassee in the area of the brickfields. At one point the Germans broke through the British line. Early in the afternoon, however, a combined French and British counter-attack drove them back. Here, too, there was hand to hand fighting.

From October onwards La Bassee remained one of the hottest corners in the war. Perched on an inland promontory which had been elaborately fortified, the German front here formed a salient. It was an important part of their plan to pierce the Allied front at this point. To carry out that plan they made repeated attacks in great force. That these attacks failed was due to the remarkable fighting qualities of the troops opposed to them. About this struggle, of vital importance in its bearing on the campaign, many stories have been told. The two following, both authentic, illustrate the spirit which inspired our men, British and Indians alike:

In one trench which had become in the course of the fighting more or less isolated, forty of our men continued to hold firm until every one of them was either killed or wounded. Eventually there were only three left capable of firing, and these three continued to hold the enemy at bay. In the meantime word had been brought to those in rear that their ammunition was nearly exhausted, and seven men, the strongest available, were selected to bring up as much ammunition as they could carry. These latter found the three wounded survivors still standing amid the bodies of their dead and disabled comrades and still firing steadily. The support, slender as it was, came in the nick of time, for at that moment the Germans launched another assault, which, like the previous ones, was beaten off, and the position saved.A very striking instance of resource and presence of mind was shown by a private (Indian) since been promoted from the ranks in recognition of his services. He and another were instructed to creep out of the trench they were defending in order to make observations of a German trench 200 yards away. They advanced, creeping in the dark, with about forty yards laterally between them. When they had covered half the distance a brilliant German searchlight was suddenly flung over the space which divided the two trenches. The flood of light left one of the two fully exposed, while just avoiding with its outer rim his companion.Concealment was useless for the man so exposed, and he was quick-witted enough to realise that no ordinary resource would save his life. He at once rose to his feet, and, in view of the British trench, advanced, salaaming to the German trench. Its occupants, taken aback by so unusual an advance, ceased fire. He still advanced, and, approaching quite close to the trench, was allowed after some dumb show to enter. A dialogue followed. The Germans, anxious to define his status, mentioned several Indian nationalities. He shook his head until the word Mussulman was mentioned. Then he nodded vigorously. A moment later his questioners mentioned the British. He drew his hand across his throat with a lively gesture of disgust. The Germans, encouraged by this indication, gave him some rations and a blanket.He spent the night with them. Next morning, by the use of his fingers, he indicated to a superior officer who had been sent for to deal with so novel a case, that there were twenty-five other Mussulman in his trench, whom, if released, he could certainly bring in. The Germans, completely deceived, gave him a final cup of coffee, and set him on this promising errand. He rejoined his friends, who had long since given him up, with a report of far more than local interest.

A very striking instance of resource and presence of mind was shown by a private (Indian) since been promoted from the ranks in recognition of his services. He and another were instructed to creep out of the trench they were defending in order to make observations of a German trench 200 yards away. They advanced, creeping in the dark, with about forty yards laterally between them. When they had covered half the distance a brilliant German searchlight was suddenly flung over the space which divided the two trenches. The flood of light left one of the two fully exposed, while just avoiding with its outer rim his companion.

Concealment was useless for the man so exposed, and he was quick-witted enough to realise that no ordinary resource would save his life. He at once rose to his feet, and, in view of the British trench, advanced, salaaming to the German trench. Its occupants, taken aback by so unusual an advance, ceased fire. He still advanced, and, approaching quite close to the trench, was allowed after some dumb show to enter. A dialogue followed. The Germans, anxious to define his status, mentioned several Indian nationalities. He shook his head until the word Mussulman was mentioned. Then he nodded vigorously. A moment later his questioners mentioned the British. He drew his hand across his throat with a lively gesture of disgust. The Germans, encouraged by this indication, gave him some rations and a blanket.

He spent the night with them. Next morning, by the use of his fingers, he indicated to a superior officer who had been sent for to deal with so novel a case, that there were twenty-five other Mussulman in his trench, whom, if released, he could certainly bring in. The Germans, completely deceived, gave him a final cup of coffee, and set him on this promising errand. He rejoined his friends, who had long since given him up, with a report of far more than local interest.

These acts of valour are but typical of a thousand like them. By such devotion to the soldier's ideal—his duty—by a courage, a morale, and a disciplined fortitude which have never been surpassed in any armies at any time, the first and essential part, the foundation, of the Allied generals' scheme, the most brilliant and daring stroke of strategy till then attempted in war, was accomplished. The Germans were held as in a vice.

All through the winter campaign the enemy had been incessantly trying to sap and mine forward, and not only at La Bassee but right across the valley of the Lys to the hills south of Ypres.

He was anxious to make this gap secure. It was the key of his position along the line from Noyon to the sea.

The construction of the Allies' entrenchment barrier was but the first stage of their great plan. At once after that barrier had been made the second stage was entered upon. The second stage was that of drawing one by one the enemy's teeth in the shape of the carefully fortified promontories and ridges, selected by him with an eye to their defensive possibilities. As in the entrenchment stage this was gone about methodically. Neither time was lost, ammunition wasted, nor lives thrown away.

Guns were massed against the position picked out for assault. They were massed without being seen. The present day gunner does not trust to the eye. He uses his gun with mathematical precision. This system the French artillerists had reduced to an exact science. At a given time these guns opened at the same instant, and on a preconcerted plan swept the position with a squall of fire. In this tornado everything, entanglements and obstructions, were cut to pieces; trenches crumbled; concrete redoubts were split into ruins. Amid the hurricane of lead nothing could live. Having swept the position the guns drew a curtain of fire behind it while the infantry advanced to the attack.

More than once it happened that the French infantry charged up to and captured trenches after this treatment without losing a man. None were left to oppose them. In fact, however, no assaults were made until the "lie" of the enemy's trenches and defences was thoroughly known.

The first German "tooth" drawn under this system was their fortification on the spur at Vermelles, four miles to the south of La Bassee. That was on December 7. After that fangs were one by one extracted all round the hostile front.15

One of these fangs was the German position on the spur at La Bassee. Along the south side of this spur early in February the Irish Guards and the Coldstreams turned the enemy out of his defences among the brick stacks there, and made the position useless to him save for purposes of defence.

Affairs having reached this stage the plan of assault was decided upon by Sir John French on February 19. It was to be carried out by the British First Army, under the command of Gen. Sir Douglas Haig, with the support of a large force of heavy artillery, a division of cavalry and some infantry of the general reserve.

The attack was to be directed against Neuve Chapelle. Holding attacks, that is practically feints, were to be made at the same time by the Second Army against La Bassee from the south and by the 4th Army Corps and the Indian Army Corps to the north.

The German position at La Bassee formed a buttress of the line which they had been striving to draw across the valley of the Lys. Their line from La Bassee across the flats of the valley as far as the hills south of Ypres had become a maze of diggings and entanglements, and was deemed to be impregnable. It was important to break this barrier. For five months at enormous cost the enemy had fought to build it up and to maintain it.

The village of Neuve Chapelle lay about half way between the spur of La Bassee on the south and the Lys on the north. The distance between the promontory on the one side and the river on the other is some eight miles. Neuve Chapelle was on the flat. From La Bassee round behind Neuve Chapelle the "inland coastline" curves, forming a bay completed near the villages of Fournes and Aubers by another promontory known as the Haut Pommeau. The distance from La Bassee to Fournes as the crow flies is five miles. Beyond Fournes again the "inland coastline" bends round sharply, and describes a much greater bay in which is situated the city of Lille. Eastward of Neuve Chapelle on the slope of the higher land is the Bois de Biez, and this with the hamlet of Pietre it was one of the British objectives to seize.

With these places in British hands the German hold on both Lille and La Bassee would be rendered precarious.

Now let us look, in its general aspects, at the British tactical plan.

A massed force of guns, including batteries of heavy howitzers, was at a given time (7.30 a.m. on the morning of March 10) to open on the German line of trenches, extending across the flat country and half-a-mile or so to the west and in front of Neuve Chapelle. Behind these trenches ran the main road from La Bassee to Armentières. For thirty-five minutes the guns were to keep up their squall of fire. By that time it was calculated the German trenches would be knocked to pieces; the entanglements and obstacles cut through; and the defending troops either killed, wounded, or demoralised. At the end of the thirty-five minutes the infantry of the First Army were to rush the position. Meanwhile, the artillery was to alter the range and sweep with a like squall of fire Neuve Chapelle and the German second line of defences to the north and south of the village. Then the infantry were to advance to this second line. In turn the artillery were now to sweep the area beyond the village, and to throw a curtain of fire along the slopes of the higher land. While this was being done the infantry were again to advance from Neuve Chapelle on to the slopes more particularly towards the Bois de Biez and Pietre, while the guns further extended their range.

It will be seen that the infantry rushes had to take place between the artillery squalls. The latter had of necessity to be regulated by a time table. It was an application on a large scale of the tactics carried out in Champagne and round Arras, Roye, and at Les Esparges.

Both the massing of the guns and that of the troops intended for this operation was carried out alike with secrecy and success. The batteries during several days preceding the battle had taken up their allotted positions without the Germans becoming aware of it. From the German lines the guns of course were out of sight. The troops had been massed in the first instance at points in the rear. From these they marched during the night before the battle to the British line of trenches. It is remarkable that the movement of these hosts remained undetected. Amid the unrelieved darkness of the ruined country they set out along the shell-pitted roads, regiment after regiment, brigade following brigade. They moved as silently as possible, as silently as only British troops can when silence is called for. At ten o'clock on the evening of March 9 this march began. Through devastated and deserted villages passed the subdued tramp of these legions, men from every part of the British Isles, regiments famous for valour on many a field.

Behind the British lines the corps halted along the roadsides. After their march they were served with hot coffee. They extended for mile after mile—Highlanders and Riflemen; Territorials and Indians; a magnificent army, and in immediate command of it one of the ablest and most resolute of British generals.

Still, apparently, the Germans suspected nothing. No outward sign of alertness was to be observed along their line. The soughing of the bleak night wind of March alone broke the silence. Then one by one the regiments moved by single files through the communication ways down into the trenches till these were filled with men. From the enemy's front there was yet no alarm, though their trenches were at many points less than 100 yards away.

Towards morning there comes out of the darkness a dull boom. A pause and then another. After a further pause a third. The guns are registering the range.

And now the faint light of dawn begins to break and the white wall of sandbags which marks the German front can be dimly made out, with here and there dark patches where the bags used are blue. Thousands of eyes watch it for evidence of movement. There is none.

From a prisoner afterwards taken it was learned that a German captain, hearing what he thought were unusual sounds, and seeing the British trenches opposite crowded, telephoned the alarm to the artillery. According to this story he was told there were no orders to open fire, and advised to mind his own business.

So at last day broke, and the hands of watches approached 7.30. With the inevitableness of fate the minutes sped. The signal time was reached.

The guns—hundreds of guns—spoke at the same instant in an overpowering crash of intensified thunder. The earth shook as though smitten. The German line appeared as if swept by an earthquake. It became a line of ceaseless explosions. Shells crashed upon it from minute to minute in thousands; the guns went at it at top speed. The wall of sandbags was tumbled and breached in all directions. Amid the spurting fires and the acrid smoke the bodies, or fragments of the bodies of men were hurled into the air. Some of these ghastly fragments were even blown into the British trenches. Back to the British trenches also wafted the sickly fumes of lyddite and cresolite. Shells whistled past only a few feet above the heads of the British infantry. The storm of shrapnel chopped the enemy's entanglements to pieces. The high explosives left his trenches shapeless. His laboriously made fortifications had been literally blasted out of being.

From behind a ragged wrack in the sky where aeroplanes were sailing, the sun came out, making still darker the cloud of smoke and dust hanging like a black pall over the German entrenchments. Where the sunlight touched them the British trenches flashed into rows of gleaming bayonets.

For the allotted thirty-five minutes the rain of fire went on. It paused as it had begun, on the instant. The momentary silence was as stunning as the uproar. It was the signal. The whistles blew for the charge.

The British infantry told off for the attack swarmed out of their trenches. There were five brigades of them: in the first line on the right to the south of Neuve Chapelle, the Garhwalis of the Meerut division of the Indian Army Corps; in the centre opposite Neuve Chapelle, the 25th; on the left to the north of Neuve Chapelle, the 23rd; in the second line the 22nd and the 21st.

The leading regiments of the 25th, the Lincolns and the Berkshires, cleared the space to the enemy's trenches with a rush. The German entanglements here had been chopped by the shells into mere litter. To reach the wreckage of the wall of sandbags was a matter of seconds. The enemy's trenches proved to be full of dead and dying. Such survivors as there were, paralysed with fright, surrendered. Then the two battalions swung one to the right, the other to the left and swept in both directions along the line. Against the Lincolns a remnant of the Germans still showed fight. The Lincolns went into them with the bayonet. Though desperate while it lasted, the struggle was brief. The men left alive surrendered. Against the Berkshires two German officers fought a machine gun, and continued to fight it until bayoneted.

In the track of the Lincolns and Berkshires came the Royal Irish Rifles and the Rifle Brigade. While the Berkshires and Lincolns were rounding up the prisoners, the Royal Irish and the Rifle Brigade moved forward towards Neuve Chapelle.

On the right the Garhwalis had equally rushed the German front. There, too, it had been a hand to hand finish, but soon over.

On the left, however, it was not the same story—not by any means the same story. The 23rd Brigade was made up of the Scottish Rifles, the 2nd Middlesex, the Devons and the West Yorkshires. Against the part of the German line they were told off to attack the guns had not done the work thoroughly. The enemy's mass of entanglements here followed a dip in the ground; and the shells had mostly missed.

Let it here be said that an accident of this kind is always liable to happen. It does not of necessity imply remissness on the part of the gunners, and involve blame. Difficulties like this will crop up in carrying out the best scheme of tactics. Indeed no great battle has ever yet been fought in which the unexpected has not been encountered, and had on the instant to be provided for.

At the same time, in a scheme of attack of this kind it is, apart from accidents, the underlying assumption on which the whole is reared that every part of the area under fire shall in the first instance be equally and fully swept. If that be not done then the infantry have imposed upon them a task which no men ought to be asked to face, and which deliberately they would never be asked to face. That was the position in which the Scottish Rifles and the 2nd Middlesex, two battalions who are among the flower of the army, found themselves. Rushing forward, they in a flash saw before them in this hollow the German entanglements standing almost intact. The work in front of them was the impossible.

Imagine the tragedy of it. They were swept by the fire of machine guns, by rifle volleys discharged from second to second, and showers of shrapnel. To go back would have thrown the whole plan of assault into confusion. It might mean the loss of the battle.

On the other hand, it was impossible to re-range the British batteries. The guns were now thundering out their rafale upon Neuve Chapelle and the German second line. In Neuve Chapelle and along that line were the enemy's local reserves. These or part of these, if there were any break in the rain of fire, would charge forward to reinforce their first line. They were there for the purpose.

Part of the Scottish Rifles got through. The entanglements in front of them had been wrecked. They reached the section of the German trenches which was their objective and overpowered the defenders. The other part was held up by the barbed wire. Then began a frantic struggle to smash through the webwork with the butts of rifles, to stamp it down, or to crawl through it. The effort was in vain. The bomb-throwers of the company dashed round in the track of their comrades who had already reached and captured the adjacent German trench. Through this trench they reached that still held and daringly bombed the Germans out of it. Meanwhile the others, forced to lie down, were sprayed both by the machine guns and by the enemy's shrapnel. A subaltern and 150 men were all who later answered to the roll-call.

The 2nd Middlesex fared no better. The instant they surged into the open two machine guns, one at each end of the section of the German trench they were to take opened upon them. Under this fire they had to clear a space of more than 120 yards. It was strewn as they raced forward with their dead and wounded. To them also the startling truth was revealed that the enemy's entanglements were still almost undamaged. Like the Scottish they tried to stamp and tear their way through. The effort was speedily seen to be a waste of life. They lay down amid the hail of bullets. A second time, and then a third they tried to break through. A message, however, had been got through to the guns. Relaid on to the German trench the artillery this time cut the entanglements through and the position, aided by a bombing party, was carried.

Such was the attack upon the German first line. But for this disaster to part of the 23rd Brigade, the casualties in this phase of the battle would have been comparatively slight.

The 25th and the Garhwalis completed their work before the time allotted for the fire squall against the village and the enemy's second line had expired. When this tornado began Neuve Chapelle was, although damaged, still standing. When the shell storm ceased, it had, save for the broken walls of the church, totally disappeared. This fair-sized place, which formerly had had some 3,000 inhabitants, was now pounded into shapeless ruins. The shells had fallen as elsewhere upon the cemetery. Tombstones had been blown about in all directions; graves torn open; coffins ploughed up and scattered in splinters together with the bones they had enclosed. In the churchyard had been posted a German detachment intended to defend that approach to the village by rifle and machine-gun fire from behind the gravestones. Most of these men lay among their gruesome surroundings dead or wounded. The whole village and its immediate neighbourhood was wrapped in smoke and dust.

Into this the moment that the guns had ceased the Rifle Brigade dashed. The German defence had been smashed. Some of the enemy continued to snipe from behind bits of wall, broken tombstones, or the wrecks of carts. Among the ruins of a few outlying houses which had escaped complete destruction others put up a fight with machine guns and potted at the British from window spaces. They were speedily disposed of. The rest, bewildered by the blast, were collected from the cellars and dug-outs in which they had sought refuge, coming up with their hands above their heads.16From the opposite direction the village had been stormed by the 3rd Gurkhas of the Indian Brigade. On the way they had got in with their kukris among a German detachment who attempted with machine guns to defend a group of houses by the cross roads at the south end of the place. The two corps, Riflemen and Gurkhas, old comrades in former fights, and each now equally dirty and blood-bespattered, cheered each other with enthusiasm.

The artillery tornado against Neuve Chapelle and its environs had been timed to last for half an hour. It began at 8.5 a.m.; it ended at 8.35 a.m. At the same instant the infantry advance against this second German line had swung out with a sledge-hammer energy. Within twenty-five minutes the village of Neuve Chapelle was in the British hands.

Thus in the centre this second wave of the onset had been crushingly successful. It was not immediately successful on the flanks. On the left flank, since the 23rd Brigade had been held up on the German first line, the troops of the 25th, who had captured the village, had to face north in order to enfilade the enemy still holding out against the 23rd. It was through this pressure as well as through the redirection of the guns, that these Germans still on that part of the first line were about eleven o'clock in the morning dislodged.

Meanwhile, through the gap in the enemy's first line which had been cleared by the 25th Brigade, the Devons, part of the 23rd, had come on, and attacked on the German second line of defence, an orchard, triangular in shape and bounded along each face by a road, which the Germans had fortified. This, one of the strong points of the German second line, the Devons carried by storm. Later, when the Middlesex got through, they occupied the position.

Both the village of Neuve Chapelle and its environs over a considerable area north and south presented a network of German diggings, and before any further advance could be made it was essential that the whole of these should be in our hands. It was supposed that this area had been completely and thoroughly searched by the shell fire. Unfortunately, as in the instance of the fire directed against the German first line, that proved not to be the case. Just to the south of Neuve Chapelle there is a junction of roads. The main road which runs almost straight as a ruler from La Bassee to Estaires, meets at this point the main road to Armentières. The two highways join at a rather acute angle, and in that angle there was a group of houses. This position the Germans had elaborately strengthened. Among the British troops it had earned the name of "Port Arthur." Remarkably enough some 200 yards of the German trenches at this place had been missed or practically missed by the fire storm. The attack here was assigned to the 22nd Brigade (British) and the 21st Brigade (Indian). The corps who faced the almost untouched length of German trench were the 59th Garhwalis, one of the finest battalions of the Indian Army. They met with the same experience as the Scottish Rifles, a frightful fire of machine guns, added to repeated rifle volleys. Some of these dauntless and wiry warriors managed to tear or wriggle through the entanglements and went into the Germans with the bayonet. They were overborne by numbers, but fought to the last man.

While this was going on the Leicesters, the entanglements in front of them having been cut, had on the right of the Indian troops carried the opposing German position, though under a cross fire from the enemy still holding out against the Garhwalis. They wheeled round to left and bombed the Germans out. Meanwhile the Seaforth Highlanders had been brought up for an attack upon the enemy from the opposite flank, and this was supported by a frontal attack from the 3rd (Territorial) Battalion of the London Regiment. The charge of the "terriers" formed one of the brilliant episodes of the battle. "Port Arthur" was at last finished, and the whole mass of German reserves who had for months inhabited this maze of diggings and fortifications, supposed to be impregnable, were either killed, wounded, prisoners, or on the run.

So much were the survivors on the run in fact, that the British troops were able to form up for the third swing in the advance without any opposition worth speaking about. Indeed, Sir John French states in his dispatch that the 21st Brigade formed up in the open without a shot being fired at them.

It was now about 1.30 in the afternoon. The part of the British line which needed to be strengthened for the further work in hand was the right wing. The 23rd Brigade needed to be reinforced, and in view of the more extended front which had to be covered as the advance proceeded, more troops were necessary. Not only was the front to be covered wider, but the further work on hand would probably turn out the stiffest. This work was an advance towards the slopes on the east and the seizure of decisive positions there.

Concurrently with the British infantry attack on the German second line the artillery had been searching this ground and the slopes, and although the Germans had been rushing up reinforcements and these were beginning to appear in the woods the curtain of fire made it out of the question for them to move farther forward.

Obviously it was all-important that the British line should be reformed and reinforced for the further advance before enemy reinforcements could be massed.

The 4th Army Corps and the Indian Army Corps had therefore been ordered up in the forenoon. There was a delay in their arrival. Apparently it arose from bad roads. Whatever the exact cause the delay meant that recovering from their initial demoralisation, the Germans had organised several strong points of opposition. One of these points was a bridge on the little river Les Layes, which runs across the flats from just outside Neuve Chapelle to Armentières, where it falls into the Lys. At this bridge the 25th Brigade found themselves held up. The approaches were a nest of machine guns. The third stage of the British advance did not begin until 3.30 in the afternoon. Two good hours had been lost.

Not merely were the 25th Brigade held up, but the Indian troops of the Reserve, advancing towards the Bois de Biez, found themselves enfiladed by the fire of this German position. The Gurkhas indeed reached the wood, and entered it. They were under a cross fire, however, from front and flank, and in the end had to retreat. In the direction also of the Pietre road the 21st Brigade met with greatly superior opposition, and like the 25th could got get forward. This was the situation at nightfall. The British troops dug themselves in along this new line.

At daybreak on March 11 the battle was renewed with an attempt by the Germans to shell the British from their new positions. During the night the enemy had brought up strong reinforcements and posted them in the woods and on the plateau. Their positions were energetically bombarded. Two German regiments in the Bois de Biez suffered heavily.

The enemy launched a counter-attack. Their columns were broken by the British fire. In pursuit of these beaten forces the British attack was renewed by the 4th Army Corps and the Indian Corps. The Germans, however, had also on their side established a new line. It was found necessary to deal with this as with the others, by a squall of artillery fire. But meantime the weather had changed. Rain and mist made accurate observation and reliable ranging out of the question.

That night further German reinforcements arrived. They were Saxons and Bavarians, mainly from Tourcoing. Before dawn on March 12 the German artillery opened upon Neuve Chapelle. Then in the dim light of breaking day two immense grey columns of German infantry were seen coming out of the woods towards Neuve Chapelle, one on the north-east, the other on the south-east. What is more they came on in mass formation. The British trenches, needless to say, had as usual been made as nearly as possible invisible. In that uncertain light the line even at quite a short distance away could not be made out. The Bavarians attacking from the south-east were still in column of route. An officer rode in their midst on horseback. Finding that they were close to the British line the charge was sounded. The mass came on in the closest formation. One minute they had uttered a cheer, the next a score or more of machine guns opened upon them. As though struck by lightning, the mass went down as it seemed, together. It changed into a writhing rampart of dead and wounded. Along it men still unhit, could be seen digging themselves in for sheer life, and even using corpses as a shelter.

It was a terrible and ghastly spectacle, the result of a terrible and ghastly blunder. Hardened as they were, even the British troops were sickened by it. From out of the heap wounded Germans crawled towards the British lines. Some of the British went out and helped them in.

The attack from the north-east was also a failure. Whether it was the fate of the Bavarians or not, the heart went out of it. At the beginning it was violent, but it utterly petered out.

These crushing repulses were again followed by a renewal of the British onset. It was directed against the village or rather the group of houses on the ridge known as the Moulin de Pietre. Through a sweeping "curtain" of German fire the British infantry stormed the enemy's trenches with grenade and bayonet. Nothing could stand against their tenacity. They held on to their new positions until nightfall. It was found, however, that to keep these positions in face of the enemy's strength was a game not worth the candle. The line was therefore withdrawn and consolidated.

This work occupied the night, so that when the morning of March 13 dawned the Germans found the British firmly entrenched east of Neuve Chapelle. The bombardment which the enemy at once opened from the Aubers ridge did very little damage. This, the fourth day following upon three days of hard and continuous fighting, was the most trying of all. The men were by this time in the last stage of fatigue. The devotion of the British soldier, however, is not readily fathomed.

Such was the battle of Neuve Chapelle. It cost the lives of nearly 2,500 British heroes, and casualties to nearly 9,000 others, while 1,751 were listed as missing. The losses of the enemy were some 18,000. In his dispatch Sir John French says: "The results attained were, in my opinion, wide and far-reaching." Not only did the British attack breach a part of the German front which had been elaborately fortified, and prove the power to breach it, and at a cost to the attacking force actually less than the force defending, but it set back in a decisive manner a scheme which the Germans had for six months been striving regardless of cost to carry through—the barring of access to the valley of the Lys. That valley is the military main road into Belgium, and as already pointed out, it is along it that there lie the railway junctions vital to the German position between the coast and the Aisne, and vital consequently to their whole position on the West. From their point of view, too, this much more than the crossing of the Yser is the way to the coast. The struggle, therefore, for mastery of the valley of the Lys represents a most important phase of the war.

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