October 2, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER 
Note that, following upon the big French 
blow upon tiie front Auberive — Ville-sur-Tourbe. 
the Crown Prince attempted a diversion by strik- 
ing once more in the Argonne, upon the flank, as 
he has struck perhaps fifty times without result in 
the course of the last winter and summer. The 
attack was launched up through the woods against 
the height of Fille Morte (which is just a big stone 
at a crossing of rides in the Forest), a point where 
he has attacked so often before. It was upon the 
classical model, poison gas, dense formations up 
the hill, four separate c-harges, a few yards of 
trenches occupied here and there, and that was 
for the moment the end of it. It has had no effect 
(up to the moment of writing) upon the operations 
to the west, and it probably will have none. 
As this goes to press the evenings com- 
munique has come in to the effect that their second 
line in the Champagne holds firm. But that news 
refers to Tuesd?.y morning at latest. We cannot 
know till after a far longer interval whether the 
second bombardment has sufficiently shaken the 
second line to imperil it. 
II.— THE BRITISH ATTACK SOUTH OF 
LA BASSEE. 
Meanwhile, far off to the north, the British 
had struck round and above the position of Lens, 
between that mining town and La Bassee. This 
main attack, delivered contem])oraneously with the 
French upon Saturday moniiug, struck a front 
of ten to twelve kilometres — that is, from 6{ to 7| 
miles. The British have here taken over a part of 
the line which during the winter and spring was 
held by the French. The attack was launched from 
Grena>' (a village at the junction of the main rail- 
way from Lens to Bethune, and the cross line to 
ha3assee 
Vermelii'5 
Haisii£> 
IV 
2 
r 
lOOOsofjjords 
La Bassee) right up to and beyond the ruins of 
Vermelles. which the French had carried during 
the winter. It swept over the intervening belt ot. 
from one to 4,000 yards, which constituted the first 
main line of the enemy's defence, roughly indi- 
cated on the sketch by the shaded area, occupied 
the village of Loos and the quarries standing on 
the slope above the village of Hulluch — a success 
representing in depth very much what the great 
French offensive in Champagne had secured. 
The western houses of the village of Hulluch 
were also held, as was the slight rise marked Hill 
70, where the main road running south to Lens tops 
a ridge, not the highest before Lens itself (that 
position is only just outside the town at Hill 84), 
but still cutting the road and threatening Lens 
dangerously from the north. Such was the work 
of Saturday, and so far as one can gather from 
the communiques, the extreme of the British 
advance corresponded more or less with the dots ou 
the above Sketch W . 
The attack had the effect it was intended to 
have, and brought all the available enemy reserves 
on, forbidding their transference elsewhere. This 
counter-offensive l)v the 
le enemy had already, 
apparently, towards the end of Saturday, retaken 
the quarries of Hulluch and pressed heavily u})on 
the district just north of Loos. On the Sunday, 
the quarries of Hulluch were retaken by the 
British; Loos and apparently the point on the 
road at Hill 70 were retained, and all that the 
British line at that moment held, from the enemyV 
bringing up of reserves, was an indentation to the 
north of L(x>s, the village itself remaining entirely 
in British hands. 
Monday saw a series of violent attacks by the 
still increasing enemy reserves at this point 
against the quarries and Hulluch, which, we hear 
in tlie Field-Marshal's dispatch of that iiight, 
were rei)ulsed with heavy loss, while the advance on 
to the main road east of Loos continued. The 
British had by Monday e\ening captured fifty- 
three officers, 2,800 men. and eighteen guns, which' 
increase in the somewhat later French report to 
twenty-three guns. The French on that same 
communique add for the Monday evening :; 
" The total number of guns captured have 
not been counted, but amount to at least 
.seventy, including certain of the enemy's 
heavy pieces." By that same evening the total 
enemy prisoners were jierhaps as high as 25,000 
men. 
We shall do well to remai'k. by the way, the 
proportion of officers to men captured. It is 
roughly one officer to seventy men; that is, about 
half the normal proportion. Now, this may mean 
one of many things, remembering that the lists of 
prisoners on the Allied side refer to unwounded. 
men. Two things inuned lately suggest themselves. 
It may mean either that local surrenders take 
place when officers have fallen wounded, or that the 
German forces are suffering from a dearth of com- 
missioned command, supplying the place of regu- 
lar officers by the temporary use of non-commis- 
sioned ranks. At any i-ate. exactly the same pheno- 
menon is observed in the East. When the Rus- 
sians give us a list of Austrian prisoners the 
number of officers is usually more or less normal. 
With the Germans it is often only half the normal. 
It is not a matter to elaborate, because many, 
readers of these lines will have better information 
upon it than I, but it is worth remarking la 
passing. 
