October 24, 1914 
LAND AND WATER 
advance — in Avliat numbers, of com-se, we could not 
discover. The Allied forces were prepared to meet 
that advance wherever the stroke might fall, and, if 
necessary, to take the counter-ofEensive. The Belgian 
Army which had evacuated Antwerp marched round 
in proximity to the frontier, untU 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 Dunkhk, throiigh 
Fumes. South of this came the Allied forces holding 
all the comitry southward down to the neighbour- 
hood of Arras. 
Up to this moment, the furthest point to which 
the Gei-man cavalry had penetrated in its great 
advance as a screen, rather less than a fortnight ago, 
was the front Hazebrouck-Cassel ; Hazebrouck in the 
plain, Cassel on its splendid single, Roman, hill. From 
this Hazebrouck-Cassel line the German cavalry had 
been pushed back in the first encounters. The main 
German advance (in what full numbers we do not yet 
know — and we shall never be able to do more than 
guess, though its composilioji wiU gradually appear 
through prisoners and other sources of information) 
appeared last Tliursday in the almost simultaneous 
occupation of Ostend and LUle. The momentum, so 
to speak, of this German push was not exhausted by 
the seizure of these points. The ultimate front — the 
extreme westward and east of the enemy here — 
was a line occupied a week ago from in front of 
AiTas, through or near Lens, in front of La Basseo, 
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 volunteers marched just too late 
to be of any use at the Battle of Tourcoing a hundred 
yeai's 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, througli 
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 GeiTnan 
cavalry movement of the week before had been not 
80 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 An-as : 
perhaps the other way round : to make more progress 
along the coast by threatening Lille and the country 
south thereof. 
At any rate the Allied forces, depending largely 
upon the excellence of cavalry work, puslied 
eastward. On Friday last the French, who had 
already taken Estaires, were at Laventie, and the 
Allies had seized the isolated group of these hills 
named after the Cat. They had not yet reached 
Ypres or Armenticres. But by Saturday they were 
right up again.st Armenticres, in Ypres, and already 
making a bend in the German line. On the Monday 
after the capture of Fromelles, there was a general 
advance in this region from Laventie, on to Armen- 
ticres, which was captui-ed and occupied ; advanced 
guards also captured the town of Frelinghen. Twenty- 
four hours later more advanced bodies of the Allies had 
reached Menin, and a spear-head of the Allied forces 
(how composed we do not know) was in Roiillcrs. 
Now if the Germans on the sea-coast had fallen 
back before this steady and rapid push of the Allies 
north of LiUe, 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 Eiver 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 foi-ce in which the 
Belgians had the good fortune to take some revenge. 
This force was posted along the only strong north- 
and-south defensive position in this flat and sandy 
district — the canalised course of the Yser, which 
waterway is also known as the " Canal of Ypres to 
the Sea." This watercourse comes out at Nieuijort, 
running by Dixmude, and appears hithei-to to have 
checked any fm-ther German advance along the coast 
towards Dunkirk. 
Meanwhile, any such advance would now, as I 
have said, be very much in peril fi-om 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 Comirai the German position at Lille 
will no longer be possible. 
The whole story of these days is one of a fairly 
rapid and distinctly successfid pressure exercised upon 
the enemy, pushing him back across a belt 10 or 12 
miles wide in the neighbourhood of Ai-ras, 30 miles 
wide in the broadest part of the wedge between Haze- 
brouck and RouUers. 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 soulh of it, and must surely ah-eady mean 
the retirement of the hazardous Grerman 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. Di6, which offensive 
had been time and again repulsed. But it was 
generally believed that during the whole of this 
period the crests of the Vosgcs 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 
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