These were the main incidents of the world's war during the months which have been under review. As those months passed the terrific nature of the task which they had undertaken became more and more clear to the British, but further reflection had confirmed them in their opinion that the alternative course of abandoning their friends and breaking their pledge to Belgium was an absolutely unthinkable {317} one, so that however great the trials and sacrifices in blood and treasure, they were not further embittered by the reflection that they could possibly have been avoided. Very greatly were they cheered in that dark hour by the splendid, whole-hearted help from India, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, help which was even more valuable from a moral than from a material standpoint. With this brief synopsis we will now return to those operations which are the proper subject of this volume. {318} CHAPTER XI THE WINTER LULL OF 1914 Increase of the Array--Formation of the Fifth Corps--The visit of the King--Third Division at Petit Bois--The fight at Givenchy--Heavy losses of the Indians--Fine advance of 1st Manchesters--Advance of the First Division--Singular scenes at Christmas. The winter lull may be said to have extended from the great combats at Ypres of the middle of November 1914 to the opening of the spring campaign in March 1915; but we will only follow it here up to the end of the year. It was a period of alternate rest and discomfort for the troops with an ever-present salt of danger. For days they found themselves billeted with some approach to comfort in the farmhouses and villages of Flanders, but such brief intervals of peace were broken by the routine of the trenches, when, in mud or water with a clay cutting before their faces and another at their backs, they waited through the long hours, listening to the crack of the sniper's rifle, or the crash of the bursting shell, with an indifference which bordered upon thankfulness for anything that would break the drab monotony of their task. It was a scene of warfare which was new to military experience. The vast plain of battle lay in front of the observer as a flat and lonely wilderness, dotted with ruined houses from which no homely wreath of smoke {319} rose into the wintry air. Here and there was an untidy litter of wire; here and there also a clump of bleak and tattered woodland; but nowhere was there any sign of man. And yet from the elevation of an aeroplane it might be seen that the population of a large city was lurking upon that motionless waste. Everywhere the airman would have distinguished the thin brown slits of the advance trenches, the broader ditches of the supports and the long zigzags of the communications, and he would have detected that they were stuffed with men--grey men and khaki, in every weird garment that ingenuity could suggest for dryness and for warmth--all cowering within their shelters with the ever-present