Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has truly said that “from October 25 to the second week in November Sir John French and Sir Douglas Haig were like engineers holding up a dam of water visibly giving way.” The great German advance towards Calais established the most critical situation of the war, and the ultimate success of our troops at the battle of Ypres, when 150,000 British and Indians withstood 600,000 Germans, will some day be proclaimed as the most brilliant achievement in our military history. In the first great battle at Ypres the Highland regiments were supported by their comrade battalions of the Territorials. In this desperate rush for Calais, when the Germans came flocking onwards like ants upon the side of a hill, when opposed to them was an army vastly inferior in numbers, things looked desperate indeed. The headquarters of General Haig were blown up, and when General French reached the British lines a retirement of four miles had taken place. He motored from one spot to another, propping up, as it were, this heroic handful of men. The British fought doggedly, watching their regiments rent to tatters, calling up every man, even the cooks, to take a hand. Cavalry and infantry, officers and men fought till they could fight no more. But the tide was turning, and when night fell upon the 31st of October the grand attack was beaten off. Of the losses of our soldiers and our brave Highlanders some estimate may be made by the casualties of individual regiments, one of which entered the battle with 1100 men and came out with only 73, and another which numbered 1350 returned only 300 strong. On November 15 the Prussian Guard, the finest body of men in the German army, advanced under the eyes of the Kaiser to wrench the road to Calais from the British. They were met by the English Guards, by the hard-fighting Highlanders, by the English fine regiments, by Irishmen, Welshmen, and our gallant Indian soldiers—and they were held until their dead lay eight deep. These actions at Ypres were costly in casualties—50,000 out of 120,000; they were beyond all price in glory and honour. The coming of winter, and the construction of trenches, brought with it a state of stalemate that was to last without a decisive offensive until the spring of 1915. During those long dreary months we were not idle. Our new armies were in hard training, our war manufactories were making equipment, but unfortunately not enough shells, and our Navy was carrying on its imperishable vigil upon the sea, and under the sea, without which our Empire would cease to exist and our Army would be cut off by twenty miles of water. The Highland regiments settled down with their customary fortitude to the weary months of trench warfare, months that brought daily losses in officers and men, bitter cold, and ceaseless rain, while overhead screamed and broke the German shell fire.