The Germans of course swept o'er all this in 1918. Witness the "busted" concrete telegraph posts growing dozens of rusty iron wires from their stumps, witness the lumpy solid cement-bags by the side of the road. But between 1914 and 1918 what a history! A little way beyond the British line is a cemetery called "V.C. corner." There are two hundred and thirty crosses and on every cross is exactly the same legend--"G.R.U. Unknown Australian soldier." There is no name in the whole of the cemetery. Some time some band of Australians charged here and did not come back and were not taken prisoner. Old rifles with broken rusty bayonets have been placed against the white-washed cross-surmounted entrance. Not many paces on one comes to the German line wrought in impregnable concrete, a line of snug beds in which it seems one might comfortably await the Last Day. But one concrete structure has been mined and looks as if it had been thrown bodily into the air without flying into bits. Now it stands poised upside down on a heap of dirt beside a profound pit. The Germans who were there when that happened are nearer now to the unknown Australian soldiers than we are. In 1914 there was none of this concrete. Both sides were equal in the mud, and the same no-man's land lay between. Even the wire had not been thrown out--or was of a most rudimentary kind. Friend and foe heard one another talking from across the wet fields--even called to one another and were without especial bitterness. On the right and towards Laventie a nervous Indian division kept up a heavy rifle fire all night long, but otherwise the war was mild. Frost-bite harmed more than iron. The first night raids were planned--sporting expeditions in which the thrills were sufficiently novel. Pleasantries were often exchanged with the enemy who was found to be possessed of plenty of English slang, and occasionally an English soldier who knew some German risked being thought a spy by his comrades and replied. Someone however planned a sharp attack on Lille. It was really the predecessor of the battle of Neuve Chapelle and should be called perhaps the battle of Fromelles. But it was completely abortive and the details were removed from public news--the first and last night attack of its kind. The date was exactly one week before Christmas, and looking at that narrow strip of no-man's land in which the attack spent itself one realises afresh how ineffectual were all these little battles of the war. Men died: that was all their effect.