If the courage displayed in these encounters had been combined for the united effort which was intended, no troops born of woman could have withstood it. The record of every fighting unit tells the same tale of desperate valour; of a few exhausted and staggering survivors hardly able to remember their own exploits, of endurance strained to the limit of capacity, and of unwilling admiration extorted even from a grudging foe. But the net result on May 9th was failure; it was necessary to retire and to repair, and the part of the West Riding units, to their own deep disappointment, was confined to occasional supporting fire, to relief-duty in the trenches, marked by little more than its normal dangers, and, on the whole, to a comparatively quiet day. This battle of Fromelles, or of Aubers Ridge, which had the indirect success of engaging sufficient German forces to assist the French advance to Carency, was renewed a week later at Festubert, and was not broken off till May 26th. ‘I had now reason,’ wrote Sir John French in his Seventh Dispatch, ‘to consider that the battle, which was commenced by the First Army on the 9th May and renewed on the 16th, having attained for the moment the immediate object I had in view, should not be further actively proceeded with; and I gave orders to Sir Douglas Haig to curtail his artillery attack and to strengthen and consolidate the ground he had won ... on a front of four miles to an average depth of 600 yards.’ We may add that, if Lille was not taken, Ypres, too, with its narrower front, still stood with its back to the wall; and behind that wall lay the Channel ports. Moreover, the southern approach had been partially blocked by the reduction of the German salient from Lens, and the fighting quality of our troops was such as to deter the enemy from attempting a break-through on one line without adequate resources on the rest. In other words, a see-saw movement was the chief obvious conclusion from the six weeks’ spurts of battle-fury to the east and south-east of Ypres. A new direct frontal attack would mean a new risk to Lens and on to Lille; a new attempt to throw out the Lens salient would mean a protrusion of the British salient from the Yser Canal. The third or middle course was to accept stalemate; and to the limited but useful extent of forcing this decision on the enemy, the heroes of the Second Battle of Ypres, of the French pocket-battles in the Artois, and of the British struggles round Aubers and Festubert are entitled to the full measure of their renown. Moreover, taking a wider survey, the stalemate suited the combatants on other accounts besides exhaustion. Germany was waging war on two fronts. Having pushed her western pieces into positions, in which, save for minor attacks, they might be left undisturbed for a time, she was anxious to concentrate on the east. England, too, had another foe, whom it might be too late to overtake unless she set about the work at once.