April 25, 19 18 
Land & Water 
5 
week, so far as we have them up to the moment of writing, 
for all that I can say here is based at ' the latest upon the 
dispatches sent from the front upon Stinday night, the 21st. 
The Action 
The battle of the Lys had, when the dispatches of Sunday 
night, Aprili4th, reached London, lasted six days, and upon 
the events of those six days my last article was based 
Those six days had seen the following situation develop : 
The enemy had completely broken through the old defen- 
sive zone between Fleurbaix and Givenchy. He got up to 
the line of Lys at the end of the first day, and in the course 
of the night was occupied in trying to push beyond the 
river. That was on Tuesday, April 9th — the first day of the 
battle. This success was unexpected, considerable, and the 
enemy hoped it might be decisive. But three accidents 
interfered with his complete success. The first was the 
magnificent defence of Givenchy, covering Bethune ; there 
he was completely held, and so long as he was completely 
held there the main line by' which supply and reinforcement 
could come up from the south was free, and the avenue for 
his advance was cramped upon that side : his left. 
The second interruption to his plan was the defence of 
Fleurbaix, which held him for most of the first day upon the 
northern post of that same gate, cramping his advance. 
The third interruption, which he had foreseen, but the 
length of which he had not foreseen, was the position of the 
Messines Ridge behind and further to the right. 
The enemy crossed the Lys successfully in spite of counter- 
attacks which made the line fluctuate, and reached on the 
evening of the third day a sort of flat horseshoe front, mushroom- 
ing out to the right and to the left, but especially to the left 
of his original advance. He had made no impression upon 
Givenchy, but he had got beyond Merville ; he touched the 
edge of the Nieppe Forest, and rourid by the north he was 
outside Bailleul and Neuve Eglise. Meanwhile he had made 
a determined effort to get hold of the Messines Ridge, but 
had only succeeded in holding on to the southern end of it 
by the ruins of Messines, not quite at the summit ; from the 
other end at Wytsrhaete he had been thrown off. 
That was the situation in the first three days advance, 
which were the three serious days at the opening of the action. 
They were the days in which the element of surprise (which 
was evidently considerable) was fully taken advantage of ; 
they were the days in which though reinforcement was 
hurrying up it had not yet arrived in any sufficient strength. 
The three following days were of quite a different nature. 
On the one side the enemy was bringing up fresh divisions 
to exploit this success ; on the other hand British reinforce- 
ment was already beginning to. come in strength, and the 
front of the salient was but sUghtly advanced. It did get 
a Uttle nearer Bethune ; it was contesting the outskirts 
of Bailleul and of Neuve Eglise, but the Messines Ridge as 
a whole still held, and one might say that with the Sunday 
night, April 14th, a first phase of the battle of the Lys was 
ended. 
The enemy then stood i^pon those two fronts I have 
described making about a right angle one with the other, 
much in the same form as the two fronts which, upon a larger 
scale, make an angle one with another from Arras to Mont- 
didier and from Montdidier to Noyon in front of Amiens. 
Tl)e first day of the second phase of the battle, the phase 
in which the enemy was trying to enlarge an accomplished 
salient, the phase which began upon Monday, April 15th, 
developed almost entirely upon the northern face. The 
pressure here resulted in a withdrawal, during the night, 
of the British troops which had been holding Bailleul, and 
by Tuesday morning the German line ran north of that 
little town just along the brook which separates it from the 
considerable range of hills of which it is the outpost. The 
occupation of Bailleul by the enemy gave him no appreciable 
advantage in the way of ground and was exaggerated in 
importance at home. 
What took place the next day, Tuesday, was correspond- 
ingly misunderstood, though it was far more important — 
for on Tuesday the i6th, the enemy reached the summit of 
the Messines Ridge in every part. He already held the site 
of what had been Messines on the southern end ; he now held 
the site of what had been Wytschaete upon the northern 
end. It was clear that if he could maintain himself upon 
the summit of this low rise, it would compel a certain 
flattening of the saUent round Ypres to the north ; a retire- 
ment which was duly and regulariy accomphshed without 
molestation from the enemy and without any loss in men or 
material. 
A counter-attack which, the next day, Wednesday the 17th, 
re-took the northern end of the ridge for some hours, was 
probably intended only to give elbow-room for the end of 
this retirement to the north. 
The loss of the Messines Ridge was of importance, not 
because it would compel this flattening of the Ypres salient 
— a purely sentimental point — but because it prepared the 
way for the turning of the Kemmel range of hiUs from the 
east. The summit of the ridge gives observation westward 
to the slopes of Kemmel and over the depression between, 
and positions there support any advance nor|th-eastward 
from Neuve Eglise through this depression which the enemy 
might make with the object of turning the hills by that end ; 
since they are so difficult of direct assault. 
He did not, however, on that Wednesday pursue his 
advantage at this point. He undertook another manoeuvre 
most significant and interesting which, had it succeeded, 
would have altered the whole situation suddenly in his 
favour. 
There was a very obvious strategic move open to the 
enemy — so obvious that he had been told cheerfully enough 
in the continental Press, and particularly by the French, 
how glaring it was, and how thoroughly it was appreciated 
upon the Allied side. 
That move was to strike north of the Ypres sahent. Were 
the enemy to succeed here — I mean, were he to break a 
front here — he would certainly uncover Dunkirk and put 
out of action a very large number of men and guns 
between the southern thrust and the northern. That 
one successful movement upon an axis Bixschoote- 
Popcringhe would in its ultimate effect give him all that 
he has failed to achieve upon the Lys. But, I repeat, 
the thing is so obvious that there can be no element of sur- 
prise in it. An advance here not only turns the line of hills 
from Mont Kemmel to the Mont des Cats, it also turns the 
obstacle of the inundated country upon the Lower Yser ; 
it cuts through the main lateral communications by road 
between the Ypres sector and the sea ; it compels rapid 
retirement north and south of it through bottle-necks which 
are quite insufficient to the task. 
Seeing that every one perceived this, and that, in countries 
where the Press writes in military terms, it was openly 
defined as tlie serious menace of the moment, the reader may 
ask whether the enemy will again attempt his original failure 
in which we are about to follow. 
The answer to this is that no sensible being dares to 
prophecy in war. 
Immediately in front of the south-western edge of the 
forest and astraddle of this main road, lay the Belgians. 
The enemy designed to break the front here, on a front of 
4,000 yards, just as he had broken the Portuguese front south 
of the Lys eight days before, and thus to create a highly 
pronounced, rapid, and perhaps decisive enveloping movement 
against all the Ypres forces in between. Had he got through 
he would have been half way to Poperinghe that night. 
The extreme significance of this move was naturally not 
seized at once by opinion at home, nor the corresponding 
value of its failure ; but it was certainly apparent over there. 
The attack was made with 21 full battalions — rather over 
5 men to the yard were chosen for the shock, drawn from 
four first-class German divisions : The 2nd Naval Division 
furnished 3 battalions — the 5th regiment ; the 58th Saxon 
furnished 3 battalions of one regiment ; the 6th Bavarian 
sent in 6 battalions (2 regiments), and a 4th division, the 
ist Landwehr, sent in all its 9 battalions. The concentration 
had taken place during the .course of the previous forty- 
eight hours, and it is clear that the moment for attack was to 
be timed by the enemy occupation of the Messines Ridge 
to the south. That occupation was effected upon the Tuesday, 
as we have seen. Upon the Wednesday, the 17th, at half 
past eight, the German infantry went over the top without 
the usual preliminary bomWrdment : It was an effort at 
surprise. The first lines of the Belgians were pierced at 
one point about 3,000 yards from the forest immediately 
to the west of the Bixschoote high road. The reinforcements 
immediately sent up by the Belgians came on the advancing 
enemy from that enemy's right flank, that is from still further 
west, and completely restored the position. They drove the 
Germans into pockets of marshy ground, killed some 2,000 
first and last, and took over 700 prisoners. By the beginning 
of the afternoon this attempt to envelop the Allies by their 
left had disastrously failed. 
These movements upon the north having come to nothing 
after occupying the first three days of the week, the enemy 
turned to the southern face for his next blow, and undertook 
upon the following day an action as momentous as that 
which had failed in the north. 
On Thursday, April i8th, then, came .this extremely 
important movement upon the part of the enemy, the magni- 
tude and significance of which was not at first grasped in 
