* * * * * The front of attack in the Battle of Loos had extended from the La Bassée Canal on the left, where our lines were faced by the village of Auchy, to the village of Loos on the extreme right. In this attack the first objective was the line of the Lens-Hulluch-La Bassée Road, the frontage being divided more or less equally by the Vermelles-Hulluch Road, which ran directly out from our trenches towards the Germans. North of this dividing line were three very serious obstacles, namely, Auchy itself defended by impassable wire entanglements; a work of large area and enormous strength known as the Hohenzollern Redoubt; and a group of Quarries close to the Lens-Hulluch Road. The 9th and 7th Divisions had met with great initial success on the 25th September 1915, the former overrunning the Hohenzollern Redoubt and gaining a position beyond it on a large slag-heap known as Fosse 8, while elements of the 7th Division sweeping the enemy's defence of the Quarries before them had gained the outskirts of Cité St Elie and Hulluch beyond the Lens-Hulluch Road. The unfortunate check to the advance of the 2nd Division at Auchy, however, had exposed the left flank of the 9th Division, who were afterwards ejected from Fosse 8, while the 7th on their right had been unable to retain their advanced positions across the main road. Desperate fighting ensued for the possession of these strongholds until the conclusion of the battle about 13th October. At that date the Germans retained possession of the whole of the Quarries and the greater part of the Hohenzollern Redoubt. Between the two the British had driven a wedge so that the part of the Hohenzollern which remained in the enemy's hands formed an abrupt salient, of which the west face was formed by a trench irreverently named by the British "Little Willie," and the south face by its obvious companion "Big Willie." Connecting the eastern extremity of Big Willie with the north-west corner of the Quarries the Germans remained in possession of Potsdam Trench, while the Quarries themselves formed another but smaller salient in the enemy's lines, well flanked on the south-east side by our positions, which caused a second abrupt turn to the east in the enemy lines.