On 11th April, about 11 A.M., the German attacked in force. The 4th Seaforth Highlanders resisted all his attempts to drive back their line. Later in the day, the battalion on their left was driven in. The Seaforths, however, formed a defensive flank, and in spite of numerous attempts made by the enemy to roll up their line, maintained themselves in their position and inflicted heavy losses on him. Subsequently the Northumberland Fusiliers, on the left of the 4th Seaforth Highlanders, delivered a counter-attack, which successfully restored the situation. The Seaforths assisted this attack by giving covering fire from the right flank, and inflicted serious losses on the enemy as he fell back in front of the Northumberland Fusiliers. On the night of the 11th the 4th Seaforth Highlanders were relieved by the 1st Division, and took up a reserve position in rear of the stream south-west of Les Faucons. Here in the course of the fighting on 12th April they were attacked about 5 P.M., the enemy everywhere being completely repulsed. On the 13th they were relieved and moved back to billets at Oblingham. The 4th Seaforth Highlanders had conducted themselves magnificently. They had been in action for five days, had been repeatedly attacked, but had not yielded a yard of ground to the enemy. General Kentish, in a telegram to the officer commanding, expressed his great appreciation of the splendid resistance offered by the battalion when fighting under his command. General Jeudwine, commanding the 55th Division, also wired: "Please accept from all ranks 55th Division our hearty thanks for the willing co-operation of the 4th Seaforths. Their help and plucky fighting have been an invaluable aid to maintaining our line through a long period of strain." The battle of the Lys was perhaps the most trying ordeal through which the Highland Division passed in the whole course of its service in France and Flanders. It had just emerged from the operations round Bapaume, in which numbers of officers and irreplaceable N.C.O.'s had become casualties. It had received large numbers of reinforcements, mostly boys of eighteen and a half and nineteen years of age, with no previous experience of war. With its units incomplete in their organisation and under-officered, the Division moved forward to stem the tide after the Portuguese had been driven from their trenches. Information as regards the progress of the enemy's advance was scanty, so that he was encountered in unexpected places, with the result that in the initial stages of the attack a solid front was not opposed to the German advance until the enemy had reached the line of the river Lawe.