After the battle of the Aisne, the army, moved _en bloc_ from the heart of France, where the war of positions was beginning to develop, appeared on the extreme left flank of the Allied forces, manoeuvring towards the East in the effort to outflank the Germans. Here, out of a struggle of cross-purposes, there emerged, little by little, the outlines of a titanic battle for the possession of the Channel coast. The Belgian army had fallen back from Antwerp upon the sea, covered by an army corps pushed from the coast in a precarious venture towards Bruges and Ghent; and the handful of British divisions stood between the picked troops of the Germans and the goal they had failed to value before it was lost. Many of these generals tasted the bitter savour of those days when it seemed impossible that flesh and blood could withstand the unceasing onslaught of ever fresh troops--of the Bavarians, the Guard, and picked Prussian regiments--and of the pounding of an overwhelming weight of metal. German critics have said that this army was one of non-commissioned officers, and certainly not even the racial stubbornness could have saved the situation if it had not been wedded to high ability, if undaunted courage had not been equalled by the resolute skill of the command. The first battle of Ypres was the first in which the Germans and the British fought _à outrance_, and no one to-day is ignorant of the result. The Germans broke off the engagement and thereby acknowledged their defeat. The British had not turned the line. That was impossible with their resources. But they had held the Germans off from their goal and inflicted upon them one of the bloodiest defeats in history. Henceforward the war presented a different problem to the command. The last battle of the war of movements on the Western front had been fought for the time being and the war of positions held sway. In the months that followed, Britain had to build up an army commensurate with the task she had assumed. For every soldier of the pre-war army she had to find about ten, and her generals had to teach the new armies their business. The action of Neuve Chapelle showed the British army making its _début_ in one of those carefully-planned limited attacks against entrenched positions which have been developed, with growing experience, out of all recognition. Loos was a more ambitious venture. In it there appeared volunteer troops to astound seasoned veterans by their dash and discipline. But the lessons of Neuve Chapelle had not been perfectly digested and too much was attempted. The result, in its larger aspect, was less achievement than the promise of overwhelming success in the future. In these two battles the British commanders firmly grasped the elements of the problem that confronted them, and proved the worth of the new Armies. They were to apply this knowledge in the most mighty battle the world has seen.