"I will now endeavour to tell you the story of the Third Battle of Ypres. As you are aware, we were preparing for this battle the whole time I was at the Front. It was part of Haig's general plan of campaign for 1917. When I first arrived in the Prison at Ypres, the day before Messines, Captain Andrews had me in his cell and explained to me the plan of campaign. He opened some maps and explained to me that Plumer's Second Army was, very shortly, going to attack on the south of the Ypres Salient with the object of taking Hill 60 and the Messines Ridge. If that attack should prove successful _we_ should, a few days afterwards, do a little 'stunt' on a German trench named Ice Trench. We were issued with photograph maps of this trench and many conferences were held with regard to it. Further, he explained that this was only a preliminary operation: the main campaign of the year was to be fought on the front between Ypres and the Sea, and Sir Hubert Gough was coming to Ypres to take command. Well, the Battle of Messines was fought the following morning; all Plumer's objectives were gained; it was a perfect 'stunt'; but, still, our Ice Trench affair was cancelled! We left Ypres soon afterwards and went into rest billets at Millain and then training billets at Westbecourt. Hunter-Weston's VIII Corps became a reserve corps behind the line and we, Jeudwine's 55th Division, were transferred to Watts's XIX Corps which became part of Gough's Fifth Army--that famous general having arrived in Flanders. While at Westbecourt we--Stockwell's 164 Brigade--practised the Third Battle of Ypres in the open cornfields and amongst the numerous vegetable crops between Cormette and Boisdinghem. When we got back to the Salient we understood Haig's plan to be that Gough's Army should smash forward from Ypres, that there should be a French Army on Gough's left, and that Rawlinson's Fourth Army should land upon, or push up, the Belgian Coast at precisely the same moment as Gough struck north from the Ypres Salient. That plan commended itself to me as highly satisfactory. But one always has to reckon with an enemy as well! I do not know whether Armin got wind of it or not, but he effectively thwarted Haig by doing precisely the kind of thing I expected he would do. Rawlinson's Army was engaged and driven back at Nieuport, thus disorganizing his plans; and Ypres--the other flank--was intensely bombarded with high explosives and gas shells on that never-to-be-forgotten night of July 12-13. The gas casualties in Ypres who were taken to hospital on July 13 were, I was told, 3,000! A much higher figure than I thought at first. A day or two after these events Gratton came in to us at the Ramparts and casually informed us that the Coast idea was postponed: the battle was going to be fought north and south of Ypres only. The Coast landing was going to take place later if the Third Battle of Ypres should prove a success--of which, of