The dismounted cavalry line now retired to the Wulverghem to Kemmel road, where they entrenched themselves, but their numbers were quite inadequate for the frontage to be held. Pending the arrival of the French, Sir Horace was ordered by the C. in C. to send up to their assistance every available man from the 2nd A.C., which was recouping at Pradelles. The Dorsets and Worcesters were accordingly sent to Neuve Eglise, and the remaining seven and a half battalions--all skeletons--were sent up to east of Bailleul under General Morland. Such was the position on November 1st. On this day the anxiously awaited 16th French Army began to arrive, the troops being railed up at the rate of eighty train loads a day, and at 11 a.m. on the 2nd, both Messines and Wytschate were retaken by the French with some assistance from our cavalry. Some of the 12th Lancers, led by 2nd Lieut. Williams, of the Scots Greys, made a very brilliant bayonet charge during the recapture of the latter town. The above-mentioned officer was officially reported to have himself killed eleven Germans on this occasion, and was awarded the D.S.O. The French now officially took over from us the line from Messines on the south to the canal on the north. It is interesting to note that, between October 27th and November 11th, some 200,000 French infantry, twenty regiments of cavalry and sixty pieces of heavy artillery reached Ypres, Poperinghe, and Bailleul. It is difficult to conceive of any more eloquent tribute to the astonishing performance of the thin little khaki ribbon, which had for a fortnight wound round Ypres, than the fact that this great force was found none too strong to hold one fourth of the front over which our handful of men had so far successfully resisted all the attempts of the enemy to break through. In calling attention to these figures, it is not intended in any sense to draw invidious comparisons between the relative merits of the French and British soldier, or even to suggest that the British troops accomplished a task of which the French would have been incapable. It is generally admitted by all our commanders at the front that the Frenchman as a fighter is unsurpassed, though his methods of fighting are not the same as ours; and, allowing for the fact that, in cases where the entire manhood of a nation fights, the average of individual excellence must obviously be lower than when only a select body of volunteers is engaged, for explanatory purposes with regard to the disposition of troops, one may safely reckon a French and British regiment as being of equal fighting value.