The story of one other German failure must be told to round off this account of the First Battle of Ypres. While the Prussian Guard was making its vain effort, the left wing of the Würtemberg army was attacking the extreme left of the salient between Zonnebeke and Bixschoote. This portion of the line was held by Zouaves, French Territorials, and cavalry. Against them was flung an overwhelming force of Germans, including the left wing of the Würtemberg army. Around Bixschoote the fight raged with such fierceness that the place was choked with dead. Had it been captured the enemy would have carried Ypres from the north. The Zouaves, always famous as dashing fighters, excelled themselves in the defence of Bixschoote, and at no point of the Allied front did the enemy lose more heavily. For nearly a month the Zouaves held the pass until the weather broke and the high winds and snow blizzards of winter set in. So the storm of battle died away in a tempest of nature's making. [Footnote 77: In olden days Norse warriors, or _berserks_, worked themselves up before a battle into a fierce madness, known as the "berserk rage."] [Footnote 78: Quoted from Mr. Will Irwin's account of the battle in the _Daily Mail_.] [Footnote 79: In Shakespeare's _Julius Cæsar_, Act iii., Scene 2, Mark Antony, in the course of his speech over the dead body of Cæsar, says, "That day he overcame the Nervii." They were a tribe of Belgic Gauls holding territory from the Sambre to the North Sea. Cæsar overcame them B.C. 57.] [Footnote 80: Fought during the Crimean War on November 5, 1854.] [Footnote 81: Fought 1½ miles south of Stirling on June 24, 1314. The bore-stone in which it is said Bruce's banner was fixed still exists on Brock's Brae.] [Footnote 82: _Mes-seen´_, between four and five miles south of Ypres.] [Footnote 83: The name is equivalent to our Theodore, "gift of God."] [Footnote 84: So called because recruited from Baluchistan, a British territory between Afghanistan and the Arabian Sea.] [Footnote 85: See page 165.] [Footnote 86: Forty miles west by north of Toledo, Spain; scene of the famous battle (July 28, 1809) in which Wellington defeated Joseph Bonaparte.] [Footnote 87: See also the account given on pp. 161-3.] [Footnote 88: See p. 165.] [Footnote 89: So called because they form the sovereign's escort. The Household Cavalry consist of three regiments--1st and 2nd Life Guards, and the Royal Horse Guards (The Blues).] [Footnote 90: See p. 167.] [Footnote 91: See Vol. II., pp. 23-25.] [Footnote 92: See Vol. II., pp. 117, 118, 139.] [Footnote 93: See Vol. II., pp. 213, 214.] [Footnote 94: See Vol. II., pp. 282 ff.] [Footnote 95: A high explosive, consisting of picric acid, used as a bursting charge for shells.] [Footnote 96: Northumberland Fusiliers.] [Footnote 97: See p. 167.] CHAPTER XVI. THE PRICE OF VICTORY AND THE PASSING OF A HERO.