necessary to safeguard the situation of the inner wings of the two armies. But even so the battle of Armentieres had meant an important success for German arms; 22,000 prisoners, 400 guns, thousands of machine-guns and a mountain of stores fell into the hands of the Germans. A considerable portion of the British army and the whole Portuguese auxiliary corps would for a certain period be unfit for fighting. Strong French forces had been removed from their own front to assist the British, and any possible plans the French Higher Command had formed for an offensive must have been hindered. The creation of a new salient was balanced by a shortening of the German lines oppo- site Ypres. The captured heights, in particular those around Wytschaete which commanded the whole of the Ypres depres- sion, formed the given point from which new attacks could be undertaken, especially in case Mt. Kemmel should still be cap- tured. The fact that it was possible to take the Bethune mines and the railway lines of Hazebrouck and Poperinghe under artillery fire added considerably to the difficulties of the enemy.
Mt. Kemmel, the eastern spur of the Bailleul heights, com- mands a wide view over the plain of Flanders to the S., E., and N., and provides an unrivalled observation point for those in pos- session. Any troops lying in the low plain beneath it must be prepared for intensive artillery action, and when, as in case of the VI. Army, their flank and rear were exposed to the artillery observers on the hill, the position was intolerable. The German Higher Command entrusted the attack on Mt. Kemmel to the XVIII. and X. Reserve Corps. April 25 was fixed as the date of attack. By that time some fresh forces at least could be placed in readiness. To make the attack easier the X. Reserve Corps took the Vlengelhoek heights N. E. of Bailleul and held them against sharp counter-attacks. On April 25 the attack troops were to reach the line from St. Eloi-Groote Vierstraat (i km. N. of the village of Kemmel and the hill) to the village of Dranouter. The attack began at 3 :3o A.M. with a particularly powerful gas attack. At about 6 A.M. this was followed by a bombardment, and this in turn by the assault at 6:45. Simultaneously battle- planes and bombing squadrons broke loose against the enemy positions and the communication centres. The attack, well pre- pared by the gas, was a complete success. The XVIII. Reserve Corps took Kemmel village and, later on, St. Eloi. The Alpine Corps stormed the hill and pushed forward its most advanced sections to the so-called Scheipenberg. The left wing of the X. Reserve Corps reached Dranouter and gained ground N. of Vlen- gelhoek. The objective of the attack had, accordingly, not only been reached but in part exceeded, although the German plans, as was subsequently discovered, were known to the enemy, and the element of surprise was consequently lacking. In consid- eration of this rapid success the attack was to be resumed on the 26th after renewed artillery preparation. The Entente, however, forestalled this attack by a counter-attack on a large scale, which came to grief. Mt. Kemmel remained in German hands on that day and for nine days after. Other detachments coming on behind took possession of Lokeren.
By April 27 the results of the Mt. Kemmel victory were evi- dent. The British again gave up a wide strip of ground to the E. and S.E. of Ypres.
An additional result was the capture by the Germans of 7,100 prisoners, 53 guns and 233 machine-guns. As a point of issue for a renewed offensive in the future Mt. Kemmel was also of the first importance. For the time being the offensive in Flanders had reached its close with the victory of April 25-26.
(W. M. Lo.)
LYTTELTON, ALFRED (1837-1913), English politician, was the youngest child and eighth son of the 4th Lord Lyttelton, a brilliant scholar who had been senior classic at Cambridge. His mother, daughter of Sir Stephen Glynne and sister of Mrs. W. E. Gladstone, died six months after his birth. All the eight boys were brought up to be keen cricketers, the cricket-ground at Hagley, Worcs., their home, being close to the house; all went to Eton, and six were in the Eton eleven. Many of them distinguished themselves in after life. The eldest, VISCOUNT COBHAM (1842- ), became a land commissioner and a railway commissioner; GENERAL SIR NEVILLE LYTTELTON, G.C.B. (1845- ), an experienced soldier and governor of Chelsea hospital; SPENCER LYTTELTON, C.B. (1847-1913), three times private secretary to Gladstone when Prime Minister; the RIGHT REV. ARTHUR LYTTELTON, D.D. (1852-1903), Bishop of Southampton; and the REV. EDWARD LYTTELTON, D.D. (1854- ), headmaster, first of Haileybury and then of Eton. Alfred, the youngest, was the most famous cricketer of them all. Indeed, for nearly all ball games he had an extraordinary aptitude. He excelled in football of three kinds, and in fives, racquets, and especially tennis holding the amateur championship for tennis from 1882 to 1896. Golf he did not take up till comparatively late in life; and, though he became keen on the game, he never attained more than a moderate proficiency. At cricket he was equally good as a bat and as a wicket-keeper. He was four years, 1872-5, in the Eton eleven, and captain the last year; four years, 1876-9, in the Cambridge eleven, and captain the last year. Moreover, he played for England against Australia, and for Gentlemen against Players; and for some years was a notable member of the Middlesex eleven. The infectious joyousness of his nature, his sterling character, his solid, if not brilliant, intellect, and his prowess at games gave him an undisputed lead among his contemporaries. He was king of the place before he left Eton; and when he went up to Trinity, Cambridge, in 1875 he gained a similar ascendancy. Perhaps his popularity and many-sidedness militated against his academical success; at any rate he only obtained, to his chagrin, a second class in the History Tripos. He chose the law as his profession, and was called to the bar in 1881. Here his reputation stood him in good stead, and he soon obtained a considerable practice both in London and on the Oxford circuit. In 1883 he was invited to assist in chambers the then Attorney-General, Sir Henry James, and from this time his success was assured. He was appointed recorder of Hereford in 1893 and of Oxford in 1894, and in due course took silk. His first wife was the brilliant Laura Tennant, sister of Mrs. Asquith; but she died in 1886, a year after the marriage, and her little boy lived only a couple of years. He married again in 1892 Edith Sophy, daughter of Archibald Balfour, who, with a son and daughter, survived him. By family tradition and an idealistic outlook a Liberal, Alfred Lyttelton had always taken a great interest in politics; and he formed one of the party at Dalmeny, when his uncle Gladstone carried his Midlothian campaign to a successful issue in the general election of 1880. But the Home Rule departure filled him with misgivings, and he declined the offer of a safe Liberal seat in 1891. Nevertheless, so long as Gladstone was in active politics he felt he could not publicly join a party in opposition to an uncle whom he revered. After the great man's retirement he entered Parliament as a Liberal Unionist at a by-election in 1895 for Warwick and Leamington a seat which he held till the Unionist downfall in 1906, returning, however, to the House a few months after the general election as member for St. George's, Hanover Square. It gave him great satisfaction to serve his apprenticeship to politics under the leadership of Mr. Arthur Balfour, to whom he was personally much attached. He did not at first speak very often, though he showed an active interest both in legal questions and in Chamberlain's schemes of social betterment and imperial unity. The Boer War afforded him an opportunity to show his capacity. He was appointed in 1900 chairman of a commission to inquire into the various concessions which President Kruger and the Rand had granted to companies and private individuals in the Transvaal, and to report which should be maintained and which annulled. In pursuance of the investigation he spent the autumn of 1900 in S. Africa, and he so impressed Lord Milner by his qualities that the High Commissioner hoped to secure him as his successor. It was, however, destined that his S. African experience should be utilized in another way. When Chamberlain resigned in 1903 in order to carry on his Tariff Reform campaign unhampered by office, Lyttelton was selected by Mr. Balfour, after Lord Milner's refusal, for the vacant secretaryship for the Colonies. His tenure of office lasted two years, and was marked
