Those were the last of the days of the old Regular Army, the staunchest and most trenchant weapon that Britain ever possessed. Signs were even then appearing of the younger formations, which were within a year to submerge the old and create a new Army, in which the names of historic corps would alone form the link between them. But owing to those very associations how strong did that link become; what a heritage did the old regiments and battalions bequeath to their younger brothers. When the Territorials and the New Army began to swamp the battle front they had the good fortune to build on foundations of granite, the builders of which had learned their trade not in months or years, but in the school of generations of soldiers who had created and maintained the Empire of Great Britain. The New Armies found the bogs and the climate the same, but they also found to hand implements to dig with, guns with countless ammunition to help to defend or clear the way for them, howitzers, grenades, trench mortars, searchlights, heavy guns, machine-guns galore, aeroplanes, balloons, communication trenches, light railways, flares, etc., etc. If they wished then to understand the conditions of those early months of the war it was not difficult. Remove all, or nearly all, of the above accessories, divide the numbers per mile of trench by five, reduce the gun ammunition to an almost infinitesimal amount, double the enemy and allow him the high _morale_ he originally undoubtedly possessed, and they could then form some idea of the war as it had to be carried out in the winter of 1914–15. The part played by the Indian Corps in the first great battle of Ypres, in as far as it relates to the fighting in the immediate vicinity of the town itself, has been told as nearly as I can gather it from official reports and private letters in my possession, but although the most critical time was in the north, the country to the south as far as La Bassée was the scene of incessant hard fighting and contests for every inch of ground. Behind us lay the plains of Flanders, and behind them the ports of Calais and Boulogne and the shores of the Channel. The eyes of Germany’s War Lord were fixed on these; could he but succeed in pushing back far enough, or breaking through, that thin khaki line, what was the prize? Had he succeeded history might have had to tell a different tale.