The attack of Jacob's Second Corps was carried out upon August 16 by two divisions, the Eighth (which had relieved the Twenty-fifth) in the Ypres-Roulers Railway-Westhoek line, and the Fifty-sixth London Territorials which had relieved the Eighteenth Division in the Glencorse Wood-Stirling Castle line. The Eighth Division advanced with the 23rd Brigade upon the left and the 25th upon the right. The barrage was excellent, the infantry were on the top of their form, and all went well. Starting at 4.45 A.M., within an hour they had taken Zonnebeke Redoubt, Iron Cross Redoubt, and Anzac. This marked their limit, however, for heavy machine-gun fire was sweeping across from machine-gun emplacements of concrete in Nonneboschen Wood in the south. The right flank of the 25th Brigade fell back therefore to the line of the Hannebeek, and the stormers of Zonnebeke Redoubt, men of the 2nd West Yorkshire, were compelled to fall back also to the same line. The Germans were now in an aggressive mood, and were seen several times advancing in large numbers down the wooded slopes in front of the British positions, but were always stopped by the heavy barrage. {173} About 2.30 P.M. their pressure caused a short retirement, and the situation was made more difficult by the failure of the 23rd Brigade to find touch with the division upon their left. The pressure of the counter-attacks still continued, and the German losses were heavy, but the machine-gun fire was so deadly in the exposed Hannebeek Valley that a further withdrawal was ordered until the troops were almost in the line from which they had started.