During the following three days--October 26, 27, 28, 1914--artillery fire was resorted to and desultory fighting and skirmishes along the entire line resulted in no noteworthy advantage to either belligerent. Thursday, October 29, 1914, opened with clear and bracing weather which promised to continue throughout the day. The German attack which had been preparing for the past three days now broke like an irresistible wave upon the salient of the Gheluvelt crossroads, where the British First Corps was stationed. The first division was driven back from its trenches and after that the line swayed forward and backward for hours, but by two o'clock in the afternoon the position remained unchanged. With the coming of the dawn on October 30, 1914, the fighting was resumed with even more savage determination on both sides. The hottest engagement centered about the ridge of Zandvoorde. German artillery fire cleared the allied trenches, burying many of the British soldiers alive under mountains of earth and debris. This forced the line to retreat a full mile to Klein Zillebeke to the north. The kaiser witnessed this engagement and by his presence cheered the German soldiers on to the most desperate fighting. On the following day October 31, 1914, the crisis came. The fighting began along the Menin-Ypres road early in the morning and advanced with great violence upon the village of Gheluvelt. The First and Third Brigades of the First Division were swept back and the First Coldstream Guards were wiped out as a unit. The whole division was driven back from Gheluvelt to the woods between Veldhoek and Hooge. The allied headquarters at Hooge were shelled. General Lomas was wounded and six of the staff officers were killed. The Royal Fusiliers who desperately stuck to their trenches fighting savagely were cut off and destroyed. Out of a thousand but seventy soldiers remained. Between two and three o'clock there occurred the most desperate fighting seen in the battle of Ypres. At 2:30 o'clock in the afternoon the Allies recaptured Gheluvelt at the point of the bayonet and by evening the Allies had regained their position. Ypres had not been captured by the Germans by this time, but they had secured their position in all the suburbs of Ypres and had that city at their mercy, provided allied reenforcements ordered up did not obstruct their path. The fighting still continued for part of November, 1914, but for the month of October no definite result was to be recorded. At Ypres, on November 2, 1914, the Germans captured 2,300 English troops and many machine guns. Dixmude was stormed by the Germans on the 10th of November, and they crossed the Yser Canal, capturing the Allies position west of Langemark, also driving them out of St. Eloi. Snow and floods interfered with the fighting along the battle front. Ypres was bombarded on several occasions and was repeatedly set on fire.