proved impracticable. The First Corps, under Sir Douglas Haig, had now arrived at a position between St. Omer and Hazebrouck; but it had to be sent to the north of Ypres to meet a German outflanking movement towards the Channel, which the exhausted Belgian Army could not have stopped without assistance. Sir Douglas Haig was therefore instructed (Oct. 19) to advance through Ypres north-eastwards to Thorout, on the Ypres-Bruges railway, with Bruges and Ghent as its eventual objective, but with the option, after passing Ypres, of attacking either the Germans on the north or those advancing from the east, French cavalry co-operating on his left and General Byng's Third Cavalry Division on his right. The British Army, Sir John French remarked, had a task arduous beyond precedent. "That success has been attained, and all the enemy's desperate attempts to break through our line frustrated, is due entirely to the marvellous fighting power and the indomitable courage and tenacity of officers, non-commissioned officers, and men." Never in all their splendid history had they answered so magnificently the desperate calls which of necessity were made on them. The First Corps, however, was compelled to turn eastwards from Ypres, and was unable to advance beyond the line Zonnenbeke-St. Julien-Langemarck-Bixschoete, and had to remain on the defensive pending a French movement on its north (Oct. 21). A series of severe engagements took place in this neighbourhood on October 22-31, special mention being made of a recapture of trenches (Oct. 23) by the Queens, Northamptons, and King's Royal Rifles, and of the fighting round Gheluvelt (some six miles east-south-east of Ypres) against vastly superior numbers (Oct. 29-31), the village being retaken, on the 31st by a bayonet charge of the 2nd Worcesters, during the most critical portion of the whole great battle. It was discovered that three German Army Corps had been charged with the task of breaking the line near Ypres, and that the Emperor regarded the issue of the attack as vital to German success in the war. The Fourth Corps, which had been formed partly out of the troops from Antwerp and had been co-operating with the First, was broken up at the end of October and incorporated in the latter, the Commander proceeding to England to supervise the mobilisation of his 8th division; and the British Army had meanwhile been considerably reinforced, while French troops had been supporting it.