colours ran on ahead of the men and planted the colours in the ground to give their men a point to make for, a mounted officer rode forward, exposing himself recklessly, to encourage his soldiers, but the musketry of the British infantry was too much for the Germans, and the attack was completely repulsed._ [33] _Throughout this narrative it is astonishing to read of the repeated reinforcements which Sir John French received. Actually, except for a few drafts, no reinforcements joined the British in the Ypres salient before the end of October: subsequently two Territorial battalions, the Hertfordshires and the London Scottish, two Yeomanry regiments, the North Somersets and the Leicestershires, and the 3rd Dragoon Guards, the belated last unit of the 3rd Cavalry Division, were added to the force, while the exhausted infantry of the 7th Division were replaced by three composite brigades from the II Corps, set free after three weeks of strenuous fighting near La Bassée by the arrival of the Meerut Division, and greatly below strength._ [34] _The British counter-attack at the Kortekeer Cabaret did not aim at doing more than recover the ground lost on 22nd October: it was not an attempt at break-through, and was quite successful in its immediate object._ [35] _On 20th October the 7th Division held the line from Zandvoorde to Kruiseik, thence to Broodseinde cross-roads east of Zonnebeke, the line being continued by the 3rd Cavalry Division to Passchendaele. The German 52nd Reserve Division and the XXVII Reserve Corps were thus faced by less than half their numbers. Nevertheless the only effect of their attack was that after the 51st Reserve Division had driven the French out of Westroosebeke, the British Cavalry found its flank exposed and had to retire on St. Julien, the 7th Division throwing back its left flank to conform. There was no fighting for Keiberg, and the expulsion of the 7th Division from Becelaere (mentioned nine lines below) after heavy street fighting, seems to be based on the slender foundation that a British reconnaissance was made in the direction of Gheluwe covered by two battalions nearer Terhand, which fell back without being seriously pressed. The Germans advancing in the evening from Becelaere were sharply repulsed by the centre infantry brigade of the 7th Division east of Polygon Wood. The events of 21st-22nd October on the front from Langemarck to Kruiseik are somewhat slurred over in this narrative. Briefly, on 21st October the Germans pressed all along the line of the 7th Division without success except on the left, where by enfilade fire from Passchendaele they forced the left of the 22nd Infantry Brigade to fall back to the south-west of Zonnebeke. Meanwhile the advance of the I Corps relieved the pressure, and though, as already explained (see footnote 29), the uncovering of the left of the I Corps prevented the advance being pressed beyond the line Zonnebeke-Langemarck, this line was made good and the German efforts