October 24, 1914 
LAND AND AVATER 
advance — in Avliat numbers, of course, we could not 
discover. The Allied forces were prepared to meet 
tliat advance wherever the stroke might fall, and, if 
necessary, to take the counter-oifensive. The Belgian 
Army which had evacuated Antwerp marched round 
in proximity to the frontier, until it had effected its 
junction with the French forces along the sea-coast, 
the advanced guard remaining at Nieuport and the 
mass extended westward towards Dunkii-k, through 
Fumes. South of this came the Allied forces holding 
all the country southward down to the neighbour- 
hood of Arras. 
Up to this moment, the furthest point to which 
tlie German cavalry had penetrated in its great 
advance as a screen, rather less than a fortnight ago, 
was the fi-ont Hazebrouck-Cassel ; Hazebrouck in the 
plain, Cassel on its splendid single, Roman, hill. From 
this Hazebrouck-Cassel line the Geraian cavalry had 
been pushed back in the first encounters. The main 
German advance (in what fuU numbers we do not yet 
know— and we shall never be able to do more than 
guess, though its composition will gradually appear 
through prisoners and other sources of information) 
appeared last Thui-sday in the almost simultaneous 
occupation of Ostend and Lille. The momentum, so 
to speak, of this German push was not exhausted by 
tlie seizure of these points. The ultimate front — the 
extreme westward and east of the enemy here — 
wjis a line occupied a week ago from in front of 
An-as, through or near Lens, in front of La Bassee, 
by Merville, to the heights (base, confused and 
insignificant) known to the inhabitants as the Hills 
of the Cat (the Monts du Chat) ; whence, by the way, 
a valiant body of volunteei-s marched just too late 
to be of any use at the Battle of Tourcoing a hundred 
years ago. In the local patois, which is Flemish, 
men call it " The Catsberg." 
From these heights the German line bent back 
slightly, but well west of the Ypres Canal, through 
Dixmude, to the sea. Ostend lay behind this line, and 
was occupied as a matter of course. 
At this moment it was not certain whether the 
Germans would attempt to attack along the sea-coast 
or to renew their violent efforts between Lille and 
Douai against Arras ; or even whether they would not 
attempt both things together. 
Meanwhile, against so long a line which might 
for all we knew be insufficiently held (from in front of 
and below Arras to the sea-coast near Ostend is, as I 
have said, a round 80 miles), the Allies pushed 
vigorously forward, and the effect of that advance 
was to strike a great wedge in between the northern 
coastal forces of the Germans and their forces in and 
to the south of Lille. As this advance proceeded it 
looked more and more as though the big Gennan 
cavalry movement of the week before had been not 
so much a screen in front of a really large advance 
of German reinforcements, as a blind — perhaps an 
effort to get the Allies to put too many men up north 
along the sea and so to weaken the front by Arras : 
perhaps the other way round : to make more progress 
along the coast by threatening Lille and the countiy 
south thereof. 
At any rate the Allied forces, depending largely 
upon the excellence of cavalry work, pushed 
eastward. On Friday last the French, who had 
already t.aken Estaires, were at Laventie, and the 
AUies had seized the isolated group of these hills 
named after the Cat. They had not yet reached 
Ypres or Armentiercs. ]3ut by Saturday they were 
right up ngainst Armentiercs, in Ypres, and alrciuly 
making a I>ond in the German line. On the Monday 
after the captui*e of Fromellcs, there was a general 
advance in this region from Laventie, on to Armen- 
tiercs, which was captured and occupied ; advanced 
guards also captured the town of Freliuglicn. Tweuty- 
four hours later more advanced bodies of the Allies had 
reached Menin, and a spcar-head of the Allied forces 
(how composed we do not know) v/as in RouUers. 
Now if the Germans on the sea-coast had fallen 
back before this steady and rapid push of the Allies 
north of Lille, we should have less to record. But the 
interesting thing is that in spite of this big wedge 
driven in between the coast and the manufacturing 
region south of the River Lys, the Germans have 
clung to the coast and were still attempting, as late 
as last Monday, to force a way eastward along it. 
They were checked by a mixed force in which the 
Belgians had the good fortune to take some revenge. 
This force was posted along the only strong nortli- 
and-south defensive position in this flat and sandy 
district — the canalised course of tlie Yser, which 
waterway is also known as the " Canal of Ypres to 
the Sea." This watercoui-se comes out at Nieuport, 
running by Dixmude, and appears hitherto to have 
checked any further German advance along the coast 
towards Dunkirk. 
Meanwhile, any such advance would now, as I 
have said, be very much in peril from the occupation 
by the Allies of all the country to the south of it ; 
and until or if that country is cleared by the Germans 
and the Allies pushed back from it (of which there is 
as yet no sign), it is not credible that the offensive 
undertaken by the enemy along the coast of the 
North Sea towards the Straits of Dover can be 
continued. 
It is equally true that if the advance from Menin 
should reach Courtrai the German position at Lille 
will no longer be possible. 
The whole story of these days is one of a fairly 
rapid and distinctly successful pressure exercised upon 
the enemy, pushing him back across a belt 10 or 12 
miles wide in the neighbourhood of An-as, 30 miles 
wide in the broadest part of the wedge between Haze- 
brouck and Roullers. But much more important than 
the mere advance is the fact that, if it can be con- 
tinued, it will mean a gradual envelopment of what 
lies to the south of it, and must surely already mean 
the retirement of the hazardous Gennan advance to 
the north of it along the sea coast. 
B. — The News from Alsace. 
The second item, the belated piece of French 
official news as regards Alsace, is interesting 
chiefly in' this : That it is the first indication 
we have had for many weeks of any improvement 
in the situation there. It was generally taken for 
granted that, with the exception of Belfort and its 
garrison (and perhaps a few miles of the plain 
east of Belfort) all Alsace had been abandoned to 
the enemy since the French disaster at the end 
of August in front of Metz. Indeed, we had heard 
no more than occasional accounts of a German 
offensive in front of St. Die, which offensive 
had been time and again repulsed. But it was 
generally believed that during the whole of this 
period the crests of the Vosges and their passes, 
from that mountain in the south called the Ballon 
d' Alsace right up to the northern height of the 
Donon, had been occupied by the enemy, who had 
also seized the French, or western, slope of those 
mountains. It now appears that all the southern 
passes have — after what struggles we are not told — 
come again into French hands, and that the eastern 
\\* 
