Pontoon bridges constructed by the Germans were destroyed by the French gunners or by the shells from the warships time and again. More than once the bridges were struck and wrecked when they were crowded with troops and these miserable men, thrown in a struggling mass into the water, were drowned by hundreds. Time after time the Germans endeavoured to bridge the river, or rather the network of rivers before the effort at length succeeded. Then from Ramscappel the Belgians were forced to retire. Once across the river with a considerable force of infantry, cavalry, and guns, the Germans seized Pervyse, and pushed forward to Furnes with such speed that the small Belgian reserve force there, surprised by them, had to quit hastily. A surprise, however, was also in store for the Germans. A division of French Algerian troops, who had been sent forward by forced marches to reinforce the Belgian resistance, were already close at hand. They reached Furnes shortly after the German advance force had established themselves there. The attack was as impetuous as it was unexpected. The Turcos cleared the Germans out of the place at the point of the bayonet. Enemy reinforcements, however, hurried up. In turn the Germans tried to carry the town by storm. The struggle went on from street to street and from house to house. Again and again the Germans were driven out. Again and again they rallied and renewed the fight. As night came on the French commander called upon his men for a supreme effort. It was victorious. Broken by this onslaught, the Germans were not only chased out of Furnes but pursued to Ramscappel and driven out of that village as well. Behind them their bridges over the Yser had in the meantime again been destroyed. Mr. A. Beaumont, special correspondent of the _Daily Telegraph_, who reached Furnes the following day, has recorded that: The roads from Ramscappel to Pervyse, and from Pervyse to Dixmude were lined with the enemy's dead. Many of the fugitives tried to escape by the fields and canals, and their bodies are still found in great numbers. As in many other places in the north, quite a number of these Germans are very young, apparently under eighteen, or else more than fifty years of age.