During this land and sea warfare the Belgians and French struggled desperately to hold the line of the river Yser. Over and over again they beat back massed attacks of the enemy. There were frenzied hand-to-hand combats and thousands of men wrestled and died on the bridges, or were drowned in the waters beneath. On Friday, 23rd October, a body of Germans succeeded in crossing the river close to Nieuport, and in forcing their way to the railway line near Ramscappelle. The Belgians, however, drove them back to their old position on the eastern bank, and the carnage was terrible. Next day some five thousand Germans managed to push across the river at the point where the road from Bruges to Pervyse is carried over the stream. On Sunday, the 25th, more Germans crossed, and the line of the Yser seemed to have been won. But as they tried to deploy from their bridgeheads the French and Belgians, entrenched in the miry fields, which are crossed and recrossed by water courses, met them with such stubborn courage that they could make but little headway. Every yard was fiercely contested, and the German loss was terribly heavy. By the 28th the Allies had been beaten back almost to the railway embankment. Then, under the eye of the Emperor himself, the Würtembergers launched a terrific attack. [Illustration] From the higher ground near Nieuport the Germans advanced in dense masses, singing patriotic songs. The defenders fell back, and at three in the afternoon, when the Kaiser saw victory almost within his grasp, they played their last card. Under cover of British naval guns, the Belgians at high tide had been hard at work near Nieuport damming the lower reaches of the canal. The brimming waters of the Yser, swollen by the recent heavy rains, now almost overtopped its banks. At the critical moment some of the sluices were opened, and the Belgian guns broke down the banks at several places. Slowly the water spread over the flat meadows on the left bank of the canal in great shallow lagoons. The culverts and bridges beneath the railway embankment had been dammed up so as to prevent the flood from extending westwards. Soon the Germans between the embankment and the canal found themselves a foot deep in water; their guns sank in the mud, and whole battalions were bogged. Only on a few patches of higher ground could they maintain a dry foothold. Nevertheless they pushed on through the rising waters, in the hope of capturing Ramscappelle and seizing the railway embankment before the waters could stay them. The Emperor himself called for volunteers, and two Würtemberg brigades, composed of some of the best fighting men in the German Empire, were chosen to carry the village and win undying glory. [Illustration: The Würtembergers' Attack on Ramscappelle. _By permission of The Sphere._]