November 7, 1914 
LAND AND WATER 
bcj'ond tlie railway which runs from Nicuport through 
Eiimscapelle and Pervyse to Dixmude. Even had the 
violent effort made upon this front succeeded, the 
German pursuit of the Allies through the wet country 
eastward to Dimkii-k would have been an appallingly 
difficult business ; and behind that again, in front of 
Calais, the Allies had, as we saw last week, the best 
defensive position of all that coast, the line of the 
river Aa, prolonged by the canal to Saint Omer. 
At any rate, this effort has certainly and finally 
failed. That in front of La Bassee is still being 
\-igorously but fruitlessly continued (with no ap])re- 
ciable fui-ther advance at this moment of writing, 
Tuesday evening) towards Bethune. Nor ai'e the 
Germans yet in possession of Lens, the other railway 
centre of that neighbourhood, which it is essential for 
them to occupy if Lille is to be of any value to them. 
But the new struggle (which bids fair to be as 
intense as that, now abandoned, along the sea-coast or 
" Calais " route) is directed towards the position of 
Tpres. 
To obtain possession of that point is the business 
the German commanders have set for themselves as 
an alternative to the possession of that sea route 
•which has proved impossible. 
This attack upon Ypres is not an attack upon a 
junction or " nodal point " of importance to supply. A 
single line of railway does indeed lead west from Ypres 
to Hazebrouck, while, of com-se, lines run from Ypres 
to the south and Lille, to the east and Brussels, to the 
north and the sea at Nieupoi-t, but none of these are 
essential to a German advance westward, as Calais and 
Boulogne. Y'^pres is not, as Hazebrouck is, for 
instance, or even as Bethune, a " nodal " point where 
a mass of communications essential to the enemy for 
his project of invasion join. The reason why Ypres 
is being attacked is not, either, that it is a depot. 
The reason is that Ypres Ls the heart of a dangerous 
" salient " or wedge thrust into the ten-itory occupied 
by German armies, which salient was neglected during 
tlie Gei-raan attack upon the Yser to the north. 
If the reader will glance at this diagram he will 
ARMENHERES 
LA BASSEE 
see what that salient meant and still means to the 
enemy. 
Wlicn the furious offensive in Flanders succeeded 
to the furious attacks lower down the line — especially 
before Arras — which had been successfully beaten off, 
the country already occupied by the German 
forces might be represented by the horizontal 
shading " A." 
As the concentration of the superior German 
numbers, due to exceptional reinforcement, proceeded 
on this front the Allies retired from Eoullers. Lille 
was occujjied by a German ai-my corps, the Allies 
retired sevei-al miles, and the next line to be held by 
them should logically have been Nieupoi-t-Dixmude- 
Yjjres-Lille-Ai-mentieres, which line the Germans 
would again have proceeded to attack at various 
places, notably in the Calais march on the front 
Nieuport-Dixmude and south of Lille. 
I say "logically" meaning, supposing for each 
party the offensive in superior numbers and inferior 
numbers on the defensive, had acted with reason. But 
the Germans did not act with reason. They divided 
their forces. And in this waste of their effort, the 
too violent, ixnsuccessful and immensely expensive 
attack on the front Nieuport-Dixmude they were 
compelled to take men from their centre. This left 
an opportunity for the Allies to press forward in. 
front of Y''pres, with the result that at the end of a 
fortnight's incredibly violent attempt of the Germans, 
with their superior numbers, to seize the strip along 
the sea-coast, and in face of their failure in that 
attempt, they found themselves in the presence of a 
gi-eat wedge tlirust forward by the Alhes in front of 
Ypres into the country they held. All that they 
occupied of the new belt was that represented by the 
diagram shading " B " in the sketch, and it is then 
apparent what a wedge Ypres commands. Now that 
the Calais attempt is abandoned, the reduction of this 
salient or wedge in front of Y^^pres has been undertaken 
by the German commanders. Pressure brought there 
will, it is hoped, relieve the attack below Lille from 
the resistance in front of it ; for if the German line 
can be pushed f oi'W'ard to Ypres itself, and can include 
Armentieres on the south, there will be no fui-ther 
danger from the north flank to the Gennan effort at 
La Bassee, and all available forces can be brought 
forward by the enemy on to that point. To reduce 
the Ypres salient, therefore, is the chief business of 
the GeiTuans at this moment, and the action they 
have developed with that object, regarded as a part 
of the whole battle of Elanders, may be called " Tlie 
Battle of Ypres." 
It is a singularly belated effort. For in that 
failure of the last fortnight between Dixmude and 
Nieuport, Germany has thrown away in killed, 
wounded, and prisoners, at the very least, the 
equivalent of a whole army corps. 
Should the Gennans be successful and reduce the 
Ypres salient, nothing very enormous will have been 
done by them, but their line will at least have been 
straightened out ; the dangerous wedge pushed into it 
in front of Ypres will have been thrust back. 
To appreciate the nature of the work round 
Ypres, the accompanying detailed sketch may be of 
value. Ypres is the centre of a great half circle of 
positions, with a radius of, roughly, six miles, all of 
which positions are, at the moment of writing, in the 
hands of the Allies, and all of which are, at the 
moment of -RTiting, or have been immediately before, 
the subject of very violent attack from the enemy. 
When I say mthin a radius of six miles, I am 
giving an extreme measurement; some of the points 
most seriously attacked are barely four miles from the 
Cloth Hall, which is the centre of Ypres town. 
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