Rat Farm, where two other medical officers were killed. This gallant officer, who earned a bar to his Military Cross on that occasion, and had escapes little short of miraculous, was to be killed a few months later by no more serious an accident than a fall from his horse. Among those good dumb soldiers, the transport animals, the casualties were the highest ever suffered by the Division. The pack mules, the use of which was even more necessary than at Messines, but infinitely less favoured by the _terrain_, were pushed forward too soon, and came under heavy machine-gun fire. Many were killed, and a far greater number had to be destroyed, though a few survived their wounds, and, like gallant veterans, bore their scars till the war was over. The loss among artillery horses was also very great. This action was the only attack made by the 36th Division which suffered complete reverse, for that on the Ancre had been a local victory, of which the fruits were lost through no fault of its troops. It is important to consider what were its causes and what its lessons. Many of the former will have become apparent in the course of this sketch of the battle and of the days preceding. They may be summarized as, firstly, exhaustion and attrition of units; secondly, weather; thirdly, lack of essential preparation. The Division had been holding the line for thirteen days. Owing to the dreadful state of the trenches and the heaviness of the German shell-fire, constant reliefs had been necessary. From the "resting" battalions parties totalling sometimes as much as a thousand men a day had been furnished for work on forward areas under constant fire from artillery of the highest calibres. Apart from the question of the huge losses, there were no troops really fit or in a normal state of efficiency when the day of the assault arrived. The personal equation had been overlooked, with disastrous results. The water-logged condition of the ground was another prominent factor. What it was only those who have seen the Flanders plain strewn with shell-holes, sometimes almost lip to lip, can imagine.