None the less it is the opinion of skilled observers that the shell-fire alone, however heavy, could not have taken the edge from the inexorable insistence of the British attack. It is to the skill and to the personal gallantry of the German machine-gunners that the result is to be traced. The bombardment of the German line had been so severe that it was hoped that most of the machine-guns had been rooted out. So indeed they had, but they had been withdrawn to the safety of excavations in the immediate rear. Suspecting this, the British artillery sprayed the ground behind the trenches with showers of shrapnel to prevent their being brought forward {49} again. This barrage was not sufficient to subdue the gunners, who dashed forward and established their pieces at the moment of the assault upon the various parapets and points of vantage, from which, regardless of their own losses, they poured a withering fire upon the infantry in the open. These brave Würtembergers were seen, with riflemen at their side, exposed waist-deep and dropping fast, but mowing the open slope as with a scythe of steel. "I cannot," said a general officer, who surveyed the whole scene, "adequately express my admiration for the British who advanced, or for the Germans who stood up under such a heavy barrage to oppose them." It was indeed that contest between the chosen children of Odin in which Professor Cramb has declared that the high gods of virility might well rejoice. We will now turn to the left of the line and carry on the detailed description of the general assault from that of the 56th Territorials in the north, who were linked up by the defensive line of the Warwicks. The Thirty-first Division was on the left of the Eighth Corps. Of this division, two brigades, the 93rd and the 94th, were in the line, with the 92nd in reserve. The 93rd, which consisted of the 15th, 16th, 18th West Yorks, and the 18th Durhams, was on the right, the 94th, including the 11th East Lancashires, and the 12th, 13th, and 14th York and Lancasters, was on the left. The advance was made upon a front of two companies, each company on a front of two platoons, the men extended to three paces interval. On the left the leading battalions were the 11th East Lancashires and 12th York and Lancasters, the latter on the extreme left {50} flank of the whole division. That this position with its exposed flank was the place of honour and of danger, may be best indicated by the fact that the colonel and six orderlies were the only men who could be collected of this heroic Sheffield battalion upon the next morning. On the right the leading troops were the 15th and 16th West Yorks. These grand North-countrymen swept across No Man's Land, dressed as if on parade, followed in succession by the remaining battalions, two of which, the 13th and 14th York and Lancasters, were the special town units of Barnsley and Leeds. "I have never seen and could not have imagined