The attempt to break through to the south of Ypres was repeated with even greater vigour on the 30th. In the gray dawn a heavy bombardment was begun on the trenches held by our cavalry at Zandvoorde, a village about a mile and a half south of Gheluvelt. So fierce was the fire that no living thing could remain in the trenches. One troop was buried alive, and soon the whole division was obliged to withdraw to a ridge about a mile west of the village. This meant that the troops on the right were uncovered, and were obliged to fall back to preserve the line. While this movement was going on, the situation was about as serious as it could well be. The enemy had been reinforced, and had now gained possession of Zandvoorde. The Scots Greys and the Hussars were hurried up, and the ridge was held until evening, when the 4th (Guards) Brigade arrived and took over the line. They held it in trenches with water above their knees for twenty-three days. The salient was sharper than ever now, and therefore even more dangerous than before. The weakest place lay between Gheluvelt and the corner of the canal near Hollebeke. Had the Germans reached the canal they would have cut off the British holding the salient to the north, and nothing could have saved Ypres. The Emperor was on the field and he had told his men that if Ypres were captured the war would be over, and the victory of Germany would be complete. So desperate was the situation that Sir Douglas Haig determined to hold the line from Gheluvelt to the corner of the canal at all costs. He moved up reserves to the rear of the line, and made other preparations to resist the great assault of the morrow. Farther south there was great peril too. The cavalry had been driven out of Hollebeke, and had fallen back on the Ypres-Armentières road, where there was heavy fighting. The line of the Third Corps had been broken, but the rent had been repaired by the gallantry of the Somerset Light Infantry. Reserves were called up, and were stationed at Neuve Eglise, about three miles south-west of Messines. With these reserves came the first infantry Territorial regiment to take the field--the London Scottish. North of Zandevoorde there was also great danger of disaster. A battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers found the troops on their right pushed back by sheer weight of numbers, and they themselves exposed to a most galling fire from machine guns on their flank. Their losses were terrible, but still they held on, and when the fight was over the battalion had almost ceased to exist. The Royal Scots Fusiliers suffered in like manner; but they and the remnant of the Yorkshires, bunched together into one battalion, held their trenches until dark. The Allied line was pushed back to the verge of Gheluvelt, and when night fell it seemed as though the Kaiser had spoken the truth when he declared, "Ypres will be mine by 1st November." * * * * *