In the meantime we had occupied the fortified town of Lille. It had been entered on 12th October by part of the XIX Saxon Corps and some _Landwehr_ troops, after the town had suffered considerably owing to the useless efforts of French territorial troops to defend it. The order to the garrison was: 'The town is to be held till the Tenth French Army arrives'; it resulted in the capture of 4500 French prisoners, who were sent to Germany. On the 14th the right wing of the Sixth Army, consisting of the XIII Würtemburg and XIX Saxon Corps, pushed forward to the Lys, behind a screen of three Cavalry Corps.[8] They took up a position covering Lille, from Menin through Comines to Warneton and thence east of Armentières, where they came into touch with the 14th Infantry Division which was further south near the western forts of Lille. To the north of the Sixth Army, the III Reserve Corps, with its three divisions from Antwerp, was advancing westwards on a broad front. By the 14th it had driven back the hostile rearguards and reached a line from Bruges to near Ghent. Airmen and reconnaissance detachments had recognised movements of large bodies of troops about Hazebrouck, Lillers and St. Omer and reported disembarkations on a big scale at Dunkirk and Calais. In addition to this, considerable hostile forces had reached Ypres, and appeared to be facing more or less southwards opposite the northern wing of the Sixth Army.[9] An order issued on 14th October, by the Chief of the German General Staff, gave the following instructions for the German forces between Lille and the sea. The Sixth Army was at first to remain entirely on the defensive along the line Menin-Armentières-La Bassée and to await the attack of our new Fourth Army against the left flank of the enemy. The offensive action of the Fourth Army after its deployment was to be so directed that the III Reserve Corps, which now belonged to it, should move as its right wing in echelon along the coast, whilst its left was to advance through Menin.