Unfortunately, it did not end as it began. The obliteration of two Battalions on the Yser between Nieuport and the sea on July 10th belongs to the history of the Northamptons and the King’s Royal Rifles, whose heroic defence of a position cut off from succour or support is Homeric in its quality.[87] Canadian historians will tell the tale of the capture of Hill 70 from the Prussian Guard, and of the long struggles in the outskirts of Lens. The season was still young, however; the initial operations had been successful, and the results achieved in June encouraged Sir Douglas Haig to extend the area of his attack right along the ridges and their spurs from Messines to Houlthulst Forest. These movements started on the last day of July, with the Fifth Army under General Sir Hubert Gough and the Second under General Sir Herbert Plumer. Slowly, resolutely, painfully, a way was forced up the difficult slopes. After twenty days a big advance could be recorded, but the going had been hard and expensive, and already the pace began to tell. The halt called in mid-August by exhaustion was employed for further preparation, and a month later, when the full attack was re-commenced, the highest points were still in enemy hands. It was now the middle of September: battle had been joined in the first week of June, but Glencorse Wood and Inverness Copse and a series of minor positions had still to be won, in order to render Passchendaele untenable and so to complete the capture of the ridges. The programme, we see, was out of gear; the price paid was out of proportion to the gains. The battle-fury surged up and down in gusts and lulls, and ebb and flow, shaped less to a regular advance than to a series of shocks and withdrawals, with the battle-mark always a little higher, but, behind it, in an ascending scale, loss of life, and devastated country, rain and ruin, and desperate endeavour. Was it worth while? was one urgent question. How long could it be kept up? was another.