Land & Water 
April 25, 1918 
this •country for the simple reason that it failed. And here 
again we may remark that the enemy attacks which fail are 
not sufficiently emphasised in our Press nor their significant 
character grasped by public opinion. In the enemy's country 
it is otherwise. The German General Staff do everything 
to impress upon its civilian population the undoubted truth 
that when an opponent makes a great and expensive effort 
the results of wh ch would have been of great moment had 
it succeeded, and when that effort fails, then, even if not a 
single prisoner is taken, and even if the trace of the front 
does not vary by a yard, a big item ha- at once to be set 
down upon the credit side of the great account in losses 
whose sum is victory. 
The important movement of which I speak was the effort 
made by the Germans upon this Thursday last, the i8th, to 
pierce the southern front of 'he new salient he has created, 
and to turn, as so far he had failed to turn during eleven days 
of effort, the essential position of Bethune. 
It may be remembered that the enemy liad already reached 
some days before a point where he just touched the canal 
which runs eastward from La Bassee to Aire and beyond. 
This canal is the chief defensive obstacle, slight though it is. 
covering the position of B6thune. Its whole object on this 
Thursday, the i8th, was to force the line of the canal and to 
establish a bridge-head upon the further side. 
The essential points to remember in this narrow area are 
the following : 
First a road (see map) which runs from Merville to B6thune, 
formerly used a bridge (now destroyed) across the canal, 
called "Hinges Bridge," and continues on its way to B6thune 
beyond the canal through the village of Hinges. 
Secondly, a wood coming quite close to the canal — within 
two hundred yards of it. and with a frontage facing the 
canal of about a thousand yards. This wood is known, from 
the name of a neighbouring hamlet, as the wood of Pacaut. 
Thirdly, south of the canal, upon the side which the Allies 
hold, the isolated lump known as Bernenchon Hill, about 
40 feet high, which gives observation over everything to the 
north beyond the canal, from Robecq, on the left, to far 
past the Hinges Road, on the right. 
The enemy's object was to force a passage of the canal 
in this neighbourhood and to establish a bridge-head as near 
as possible to the point where he could use in his further 
advance the Hinges Road. If he had succeeded, the threat 
to Bethune would have been serious. 
During the whole of the previous nigfjt — the night of the 
Wednesday and the Thursday — he had continued a pro- 
longed and heavy bombardment upon all this sector, far to 
the right and far to the left of the central point which he 
desired to seize as a bridge-head. It was a bombardment 
characterised like all these upon the Flanders front during 
the last fortnight by a lavish use of gas. He had also occupied 
the village of Riez in front of Robecq to support his centre. 
At four o'clock in the morning of the Thursday, while it was 
still dark, he launched the infantry in extraordinarily dense 
formation. Six divisions were used first and last on that 
day from the Pacaut Wood to Givenchy. But at the vital 
point of the Hinges Bridge his depth was at the rate of one 
division to every 800 yards, or something like nine or ten 
bayonets to the yard run : two divisions in just over a mile 
appeared before the end of the attacks. Three divisions were 
also concentrated against the "pillar" of Givenchy on the ex- 
treme British right, while upon the left, near Robecq, one 
division attacked : to pin the troops down in front of it and 
prevent reinforcement of the centre. The pressure at the 
Hinges Bridge must have been as heavy as anything that has 
been seen even in this extraordinarily expensive German 
effort on the field of the Lys. 
The divisions which had the principal task assigned to 
them — that of forcing the canal at or near the point where 
the bridge used to stand, by which the Hinges Road crosses 
the waterway— were easily identified after their defeat. 
They were the 240th and 239th Divisions. The 240th 
attacked first, the German right or west, and the 23gth later 
to the left of it. 
The first movement in the early morning before dawn 
was made by the enemy in four waves which issued from the 
Pacaut Wood, under the imperfect cover of which their 
concentration had been made the day before, and charged 
for the canal. The banks of the waterway were nearly 
reached, but the rate of destruction was too much for them 
and ultimately they broke just before it grew light. Then 
came a pause of over one hour in the enemy's effort, during 
which he was presumably drawing up the fresh men of the 
239th, and certainly reorganising the chaos of the broken 
240th which had taken refuge again among the trees. 
In tliis second effort — principally made by the 239th along 
the main road east of the wood — not only was the bank 
of the canal reached but pontoons and floaters began to be 
placed by the survivors of the terribly expensive onslaught. 
But the crossing was not made. Those who had succeeded in 
beginning the placing of the pontoon floaters were wiped out. 
Another wave of men coming up immediately behind were 
upon the bank before the crossings could be destroyed, 
and it looked for a moment as though the crossing would 
be effected. The fire of the defence was just too much for 
III 
