Sir Douglas Haig had therefore to halt and hold a line from Bixschoote, close to the Ypres Canal, to Zonnebeke,[65] on the Ypres-Roulers road. The remainder of the line round to Hollebeke was also held by his infantry, and south of Hollebeke Allenby's cavalry linked them up with the Third Corps, which was lying along the line of the Lys towards Armentières. Such was the position of our troops on 21st October. We were holding, you will observe, a bulge round Ypres. Any troops so placed are very insecure. They occupy a kind of wedge thrust into the territory held by the enemy, and this wedge can be attacked on each of its faces and at the jutting angle at one and the same time. If the line is broken anywhere the bulge must give way, and the troops holding it must retire and straighten out their line or suffer destruction. You may, perhaps, ask why the Germans chose to make a great attack on Ypres. It is not a great railway centre such as Hazebrouck or Béthune; only a single line of railway runs westwards from the city. Nor was it a depôt filled with stores and valuable to the Allies as a base. The reason why the Germans threw their strength against Ypres is that it was the heart of the dangerous bulge or salient which I have just described. If the salient could have been broken through--and the task did not seem to be very difficult--the whole Allied line of defence might have been pushed back beyond Ypres and Armentières, in which case the Allies would not be able to turn the north flank of the Germans. A frightful series of struggles soon began to rage. Day after day the gray-coated legions of the Kaiser in ever-increasing numbers swooped down on all parts of the salient, and only by almost superhuman endurance were the thin lines of the defence held against them. The line was nearly broken at Zonnebeke; it was actually pierced for a time in the centre at Becelaere, while on the extreme right a most determined assault was made against the cavalry at Kleine Zillebeke. The few reserves available were hurried to the danger points, and then began days of the heaviest possible fighting and of the utmost anxiety. One hundred thousand British, strung out along a line of twenty miles, had to hold back half a million Germans! Nor was this all: the half-million was growing in numbers every day. [Illustration: British Troops advancing for an Attack. _Photo, Sport and General._]