The situation on the Western front, at least as far as the British line is concerned, for only of that am I competent to speak, represents siege warfare in its highest expression. The opponents face one another in endless lines of trenches winding in and out of the mostly flat country of Flanders, following the lie of the ground or the positions captured or lost in one or other of the great battles which from time to time break the monotony. By monotony I mean only the sameness of life and not inaction. For work never ceases on either side. It is not sufficient to capture, consolidate, and hold a position. The general situation must be reviewed in relation to the ground gained. Its possible weaknesses and the opportunities it offers for strengthening the adjacent positions must be studied. Trenches must be joined up with those captured, redoubts constructed to counteract a danger threatening from some point, and communication trenches dug to afford safe and sheltered ingress to and egress from the new position. The ground is under ceaseless survey. A move by the enemy calls for a counter-move on our part. A new trench dug by him may be found to enfilade our trenches from a certain angle, and while by the construction of new traverses or the heightening of parapet and parados, the trench may be rendered immune from sniping, a fresh trench will be dug at a new angle, or a machine-gun brought up to make life sour for the occupants of the new German position, and force them in their turn to counter-measures. Anyone who saw the trenches at Mons or even, much later, the trenches on the Aisne, would scarcely recognize them in the deep, elaborate earthworks of Flanders with the construction of which our army is now so familiar. At Mons our men sought shelter in shallow ditches dug in the ground, the entrenchments of field-days in the Chiltern Hills. In Flanders the trenches are dug deep into the soil, and built up with sandbags high above the ground-level, plentifully supplied with traverses to localize the effect of bursting shells. Very solid affairs, too, these traverses are, great masses of clay firmly bound together with wire-netting and topped with sandbags--stout sacks filled with earth--that can be relied upon to stop a bullet.