The situation had now greatly improved for the Seventeenth Division in front of Quadrangle Support, for not only was Mametz Wood mostly in the hands of the Welsh, but the Twenty-third Division on the left, who after their temporary check at Contalmaison had fallen back upon the line Peake Alley-Birch Tree Wood-Shelter Wood, now came forward again and occupied Bailiff Wood upon the north of Contalmaison. Under these circumstances, the 50th Brigade upon the right again attempted to get forward in order to keep level with the Welsh in the wood. {132} Connection had not yet been made at that point, however, and the 7th East Yorks, who were the leading battalion, suffered heavy losses before being compelled to abandon the attempt. Victory, however, was at last coming to reward the living and vindicate the dead. At four in the afternoon of July 10, the Twenty-third Division advanced from Bailiff Wood for its second assault upon Contalmaison. This time everything went to perfection, and the much-enduring infantry were able to take possession of the village, while a counter-attack by the third Reserve Division of the Prussian Guards came under concentrated artillery fire, and was completely disorganised and destroyed. It was the wounded of the Guard from this attack who were seen at Potsdam, and described by Mr. Curtin, the American journalist, in one of the most brilliant articles of the War. Carried into furniture vans, they were conveyed to their hospitals with every secrecy, in order to conceal from the populace the results of the encounter between the famous Corps and those men of the New Army who for more than a year had been the favourite butt of the _Witz-Blätter_ of Berlin. Old Father Time has a humour of his own, and his laugh is usually the last. Besides the Guard the 70th Jaeger and the 110th, 114th, and 119th Regiments were included in this defeat. The two bastions having fallen, the problem of the Quadrangle Support became a very different one, and the 51st Brigade, joining up with the right of the Twenty-third Division in the evening, was able to get hold of the left end of it. Even now, however, the Germans fought hard to the right, and both the 7th East Yorks and the 6th Dorsets had to push strongly {133} before they could win through. They were encouraged in their efforts when, in the waning light, they were able to see small bodies of the enemy retiring in the distance out of the fringe of the wood. By ten o'clock that night the long task had been accomplished, and the dead might sleep in peace, for Quadrangle Support was in the hands of the Seventeenth Division. They were relieved by the Twenty-first Division upon July 11.