There the only lines along which attacks in great strength could be thrown were roads running into Ypres like spokes into the hub of a wheel, but the farther in any one of these attacking columns moved, the more were its flanks exposed. The precaution against flank attack, advance in echelon, was made by the character of this woodland belt out of the question. We have seen that, appreciating these capabilities of defence, the British Commander-in-Chief had crushed a gigantic onset. It is manifest now that the Germans had believed that by weight of numbers they could prevail over the difficulties, and the chances those difficulties gave of holding this sector with a comparatively small force, but that had merely involved them in enormous losses, a risk inseparable from their tactics. Having now realised their mistake, they attempted to throw an immense wedge of troops against the two miles of British line between Wytscheate and Messines. Here again, however, they found themselves anticipated. The front was no longer held merely by a single rank of cavalry. The bemudded, dirty, unshaven ragged, and almost unrecognisable yet victorious survivors of that band of heroes had been relieved. Part of the 16th French Army Corps, General Conneau's cavalry, a division of the Indian Army Corps, and a part of the British 2nd Army Corps were on or behind it. Sir John French was taking no unnecessary risks. To these troops, some 50,000 in all, therefore, he added as a reserve units of the Territorials recently arrived from England. It was certain that they would have to meet German forces four if not five times as numerous, and it was certain that those German troops would fight to the last gasp.