did. I managed to get to a wood, where I found a number of

wounded, and waited until the firing cooled down, when we chanced it over the river, getting there as best we could, the Germans shelling the bridge the whole time, also a railway cutting, in which we got for shelter."

How the Devons at a decisive point of the line covered this retirement and beat off a furious German attack is told by one of the officers of the corps. He says:

On the night of October 22, we advanced a bit and dug ourselves more or less in by dawn, and soon after light we saw great masses of German infantry emerge from woods and hedges some 1,000 yards to our front, and advance to attack us. We opened fire on them, and killed dozens. This was answered by the Germans with a tremendous shell fire from their heavy guns. The Devons were perfectly wonderful; not a man left his trench. All day long the battle raged, and you never saw such an inferno. By night the place was a mass of fire, smoke, dead, and dying. All night they attacked us. Sometimes they got right up to our trenches, only to be hurled back by the Devons' bayonets. Dawn broke on the 24th with the same struggle still going on, and it continued all day and night, and all through the 25th. We never slept a wink, and by night we were absolutely done. No humans could have done more.

The men were perfectly splendid, and repulsed every attack, with great loss to the enemy. We were relieved at 1 a.m. on October 26, and as we marched back a mile into billets all the troops cheered us frantically. General Smith-Dorrien sent a wire congratulating us on our splendid fight. We heard officially from Divisional Head-quarters that there were 1,000 dead Germans in front of our trenches. The whole place was littered with their dead.

On October 24 the Indian troops under the command of General Watkis were sent to Lacon, three miles in the rear of the front, as a reserve. In the evening of that day, a day like those preceding it of dismal rain, the Germans made an exceptional effort. With the advantage of the bad and failing light, which it was probably hoped would confuse the British rifle fire, a thing they had now learned to dread, they delivered a massed assault in enormous force. The attack was made simultaneously by three columns directed one against the trenches held by the Wiltshires above Givenchy; the second against the trenches held by the Royal West Kents; and the third against the position of the Gordons at the farther end of the line near Fauquissart. The first two attacks failed completely. The third had a temporary success. The Gordons, with odds which no skill with the rifle could overcome, were driven from their trenches. This was undoubtedly the chief point of the German onset. While the struggle was going on the Middlesex regiment had been ordered up to support. They arrived nearly as soon as the Germans had seized the position. Darkness had now come on. Shaken by their heavy losses, the Germans were not prepared for this practically instantaneous counter-attack. They did not know what was behind it. The Middlesex regiment appeared to spring at them out of the ground. Though elated at their victory they were exhausted. For aught they could tell other forces were at the back of these. The fight was fierce but brief. The end of it saw the enemy flying back into the night to escape the deadly bayonets wielded with what seemed almost superhuman energy. The attack added another blank to Prince Ruprecht's record.

In the meantime persistent attacks had been kept up on the position of the 3rd Corps along the railway from Laventie to Armentières, as well as on the line held by the Cavalry Corps along the hills from Wytscheate to Zandvoorde. It was the evident intention of the Germans to seize this ridge as dominating the British position in Ypres. Along this sector they were massed in great strength. Shortened, however, as it now was the front held. The struggle round the village of Hollebeke was to the last degree desperate. The line, however, of the Indian troops along the high road from Armentières to Wytscheate still menaced this German attack in flank, and materially helped the Cavalry Corps to hold its ground.

In view of this failure of the onslaught from the south, the enemy on October 25 renewed his attack in strength against the line of the 1st British Army Corps to the north of Ypres, and combined it with yet another onset south of Ypres against the trenches held by the Cavalry Corps. It was deemed prudent to reinforce part of the line here from the Reserve of French Territorials. Those of the cavalry whom they replaced were withdrawn and concentrated at Zillebeke to the north of the Zandvoorde ridge.

Apparently the losses and the confusion arising from the defeat of the great assault of the evening before (October 24) made it impossible for the Germans to renew their efforts on this day (October 25) against the front from Armentières to La Bassee. Their only success in the fighting of the 25th was the capture of the trenches held by the Leicestershire Regiment whom they had managed to overwhelm.

We now come to a lull in the battle. It had gone on along the southern sector of the front since October 17, and along the whole front since October 22. During the last three days more especially the Germans had exerted their total strength. They had incurred a terrible sacrifice of life, and so far the only result, a miserable result for such a price, had been the slight retirement of the British line to the west of Lille, and a foothold across the Lys to the south of Ypres.

It is not surprising therefore that for the time being they ceased their attacks while they moved up additional forces. These were not merely to repair losses but to add to the mass and momentum of the onset. None of the objects sought by this battle had been gained, nor did any one of them appear to any nearer of attainment.

The position from the German side is reflected in the army order which on October 26 Prince Ruprecht issued to his troops. Copies of it were afterwards found on dead German officers of his army. "You have been fighting," he told them, "under very difficult conditions. It is our business now not to let the struggle with our most detested enemy drag on longer. The decisive blow has still to be struck."

The Kaiser at this time came to Courtrai and Thielt to supervise the massing of his legions, and went round their billets and cantonments making a succession of speeches. Everything was done to fortify their determination, and heighten their ardour. A general army order was issued reminding them that "the thrust against Ypres" was of decisive importance. On October 29 the mighty mass of a front extending from Lille to the coast was judged to have been refitted and in every respect ready for the final and irresistible blow.

On his side Sir John French had made use of the interval to reform and tighten his line. The comparatively weak spot to the east of Ypres was stiffened, and if this lull was necessary to the enemy it proved of equal advantage to the Allies, and opposed to the enemy's intended final blow a new set of difficulties.