While this struggle to the death was taking place at Croix Marechal, the enemy was gathering his forces for another onslaught of unparalleled magnitude. It began at dawn on October 30, and was an effort to fight across the hills by way of Zandvoorde and Hollebeke. In this there were employed five German army corps, aggregating nearly 300,000 men. Opposed to them along this line were the British troops of the 7th Division and the Cavalry Division, less than a tenth of their number. The advance along the Menin road and through the woods having turned out to be too difficult, the Germans were now at last trying this way. Once more the onset was supported by a mighty bombardment, and once more the bombardment did comparatively little damage. What told was the weight of numbers. The attack came forward in two enormous masses. That thrown against Zandvoorde comprised three army corps, the 13th and 15th Prussians, and the 2nd Bavarians. That thrown against Hollebeke comprised two corps. A special Army Order had been issued telling the troops that the Kaiser considered the success of this attack to be of vital importance to the issue of the war, and, indeed, for the reasons already shown, it was. Of course and conversely its failure affected the issue of the war not less vitally. Forward and up the southern slopes of the ridge these masses, fortified by the Imperial order, swarmed in numbers that appeared to be countless, for to the eye even 100,000 men looks a multitude innumerable. The British gunners, pushing their guns forward daringly for greater effect, lashed them with a storm of shrapnel; the thin line in the British trenches shot them until the rifles were red hot. They went down not in hundreds, but in thousands. Still they came on, crushing under their boots dead and dying indifferently. It was the supreme manifestation of the Will to Power; the climax of the War-lord's method of making war. Such numbers could not be finished in the time. When those in front wavered under the swishing lash of leaden death, those behind pushed them on. They surged onwards like the waves of a rising tide. Doubtless this sounds mere imagination. It is, however, but the feeblest reflection of the truth. There was nothing for it except, while time yet allowed, for the 3rd Cavalry Division, who were holding the trenches on the ridge east of Zandvoorde, to decamp, and to decamp in a hurry. Likely enough, the Germans were astonished to discover the comparatively contemptible handful who had offered such a daring defence. The woods just to the rear of the British trenches aided the escape of these heroes. Relatively their casualties had been few. With the nimbleness of Redskins they disappeared among the tree trunks as the grey-green flood of the enemy, seeing their retreat, surged forward in a last rush and with a roar of triumph, sending after them a hail of in the main futile bullets. Through the woods of the mile of intervening