The Germans had their pipe-lines laid and their gas-cylinders embedded in front of their trenches in the northern part of the salient. They obviously had no gas at Hill 60, otherwise, seeing that from April 22 on the wind was favourable, they would have gassed the 13th Brigade off the hill immediately the position fell into our hands, instead of waiting until May 1, when they gained a footing on the hill by means of their first gas attack (against the Dorsets), and May 5, when they overwhelmed the Duke of Wellington’s and recaptured the position. Believing, then, that the attempt was to be made to pierce their line at Hill 60, they naturally turned their hand to the best offensive weapon they believed themselves to possess--namely, the line of gas-cylinders installed ready for their experiment in the northern part of the salient. They had been accumulating a formidable concentration of artillery in anticipation of their attack. Their plans were certainly not ripe, for during the battle they had to bring down heavy naval guns from the Belgian coast to reinforce their artillery. Fortune favoured them in respect of guns. The second battle of Ypres was an artillery battle. As I have said, the German infantry showed want of vigour. Its attacks, when they were made, were half-hearted and comparatively easily repulsed. Their strength lay in their artillery, of which they possessed guns of all calibres, and used them with a reckless expenditure of ammunition that must have struck our gunners, starved of high-explosive shells, hot with angry envy. From April 22 until May 13 they pounded our men in their trenches, wherever they were, night and day, with relentless energy until the trenches were obliterated in places and choked with débris. They stretched a curtain of fire right across the salient, over Ypres (from which all the main roads radiate like the spokes of a wheel) and far beyond, and the brigades rushed up into action had to traverse this inferno before they came into the fight. It was a battle of machinery. It was scientific slaughter--death and destruction poured out from miles away. There was a British brigade in the fight that lost all its Colonels but one, and battalions that lost heavily without ever seeing a German. For the Germans not to have won through, against an enemy thrown into confusion by a foul and diabolical surprise and out-gunned from start to finish, is in itself a defeat. Their failure to blast their way through to the sea, which was their objective as the battle developed for them with such unexpected success, must be counted a signal triumph for the Allies--not only for the British troops that held the salient, but also for the gallant French, whose counter-attacks were instrumental in delaying the onrush of the German hordes down the western bank of the canal.