LAND & WATER 
Cfje WLnv 
Haig's Third Blo\\ 
By Hilaire Belloc 
October ii, 1917 
ON Thursday last, October 4th, Sir Douglas Haig 
delivered tlie third of tliose successful blows, each 
with its strictly limited objectives, which are at once 
mastering the Pusschendaelc Ridges and wearing 
down the German forces opposed to them. Again we note 
the rapidity with w'hich the preparation for the action was 
made. The first use of the new tactic was made upon Sep- 
tember 26th. The interval between the first and the second 
blow was five days, and the interval between the second 
and the third seven. Such rapidity of preparation is a new 
thing in this war and is of very good augury for the future. 
Tile line seized by the British forces at the end of tjie 
second blow, that delivered upon Wednesday, September 26th, 
and consolidated upon Thursday, September 27th, ran from 
well in front of i^angemarck through tlie middle of the rulni 
of Zonnebeke. covered the Polygon Wood on the easterr 
boundaries of which'the new British posts were established 
and further south crossed the Menin Road along the 55 metn 
contour, including tiie whole of tlie Tower Hamlets Ridge 
That line, it will be remembered, corresponded roughly, at 
its southern end, to the old third German trench line, no 
longer lield as a trench line, but organised in a string or 
rather chequer of blockhouses — organised waters and ruins. 
As regards the Passchendaele Ridge, the seizing of which 
is the immediate object of these successive steps, what had 
already been accomplished was the complete capture of its 
southern pillar, the approach at Zonnebeke to a point about 
a thousand yards from the summit of the ridge (marked by 
