_Mr. Gibbs declares that had the Germans been able to pass Givenchy or cross the canal north of Béthune on the 18th and 19th the result would have proved disastrous. He gives credit for the repulse to the British and French combined lines. He thus describes the achievement of the Belgians on April 17_: The Germans on the 17th pressed the attack in force against the Belgians. Besides three regiments of the 1st Landwehr Division usually holding this sector, between the Ypres-Staden railway and Kippe, they brought up from Dixmude--poor Dixmude, into whose flaming ruins I went when it was first bombarded in October, 1914--two regiments of the 6th Bavarian Division, and from the coast the 5th Matrosen Regiment of the 2d Naval Division, with a regiment of the 58th Saxons. It was a heavy force, and they hoped to surprise and annihilate the Belgian resistance by their weight and quickness of attack. The Belgians were waiting for them, standing, too, in those swampy fields which they have held against the enemy for three and a half years, always shelled, always paying daily a toll of life and limb, not getting much glory or recognition because of the great battles elsewhere, but patient and enduring as when I knew them on the Yser in the first dreadful Winter of the war, and their little regular army fought to a finish. Even before the battle the German marines, Saxon troops, and Landwehr suffered misery and lost many men. They lay out in the flat, wet fields two nights previously, and were very cold, and scared by the Belgian gunfire which burst among them. They had no great artillery behind them, and the Saxons and German sailors now prisoners of the Belgians curse bitterly because they were expected to get through easily in spite of this. Germans Cut Off The enemy's intention was to take Bixschoote and advance across the Yser Canal, driving south to Poperinghe. What they did by their massed attacks was to penetrate to a point near Hoekske, southeast of Merckem, the main weight of their pressure being directed along the Bixschoote road. The Belgians delivered a quick counterattack, with wonderful enthusiasm among officers and men. They had perfect knowledge of the country, and used this fully by striking up from a place called Luyghem in such a way that the enemy was driven toward the swamp, where any who went in sank up to his neck in the ice-cold water.