enemy's trenches, and then cleared them with the bayonet; on the night of the 18th the Gloucesters advanced near Chivy, filled in the German trenches and took two Maxim guns. From the 23rd to the 26th the enemy was less active; but on the 26th, and especially on the night of the 27th-28th, there were renewed German attacks, which were beaten off, and were the last great German effort in the battle. Sir John French eulogised the conduct alike of officers and men; the total casualties in four weeks were 561 officers and 12,980 men, and the heavy rain and cold during most of the battle imposed a severe tax on the endurance of the troops. The German losses, it must be noted, were far heavier; and after the end of September the German resistance died down and permitted the removal of the British troops to Ypres. All this was as yet only known vaguely; but a possible danger to London had been impressed afresh on the public by the issue through the police authorities of an Admiralty statement of the measures taken to protect the capital against an air raid. More searchlights had been mounted, as well as special guns; at Hendon aerodrome men and machines of the Naval Air Service were held ready to pursue the raiders. Naval airships were to pay surprise visits, to test the effectiveness of the diminution of lighting; and for many months the darkness of the London streets, the consequent reduction in evening performances at the theatres, and (after the middle of November) the regulation that suburban trains must have their blinds drawn after nightfall, served as a reminder of the newest peril of modern war. Besides all this, the conviction that Germany was essentially responsible for the war had been, if that were possible, intensified; first, by Sir Edward Grey's effective reply to a bungling attack on the sincerity of Great Britain made through the Danish Press by the German Chancellor (Sept. 15, 16), and next by the issue of two important diplomatic publications: (1) Sir Maurice de Bunsen's lengthy despatch (Sept. 16) which showed that the Austro-Hungarian Government had pressed on the war against Serbia in harmony with the wishes of the population of Vienna and other leading cities, and that Germany had by her intervention destroyed the last hopes of a peaceful solution; (2) the Russian Orange Book (Sept. 21; see _post_, For. Hist., Chap. II., III.).