hands by masterly soldiership. Great captures in men and material had also been effected. 7,200 prisoners (including 145 officers) had been taken, together with 67 guns, 94 trench mortars and 294 machine-guns. Nor had the victory been purchased at a heavy cost in casualties. The total number of killed and wounded the latter in many cases representing trifling injuries only amounted to 16,000 in an army of sixteen divisions assailing a position of exceptional strength and that was strongly held. That the defenders realized how thoroughly vanquished they were, was shown by the feeble nature of such counter- attacks as were attempted during the day, as well as by the fact that the conquerors were during the night permitted to consoli- date the ground that they had secured, almost unmolested. The battle of Messines was from the point of view of the victors a veritable masterpiece of design and of execution.
Not until the evening of the following day, the 8th, did the Germans adventure a general counter-attack upon the positions which the II. Army had won and which it had by that time prepared satisfactorily for defence. Covered by an intense bom- bardment, the hostile infantry then advanced to the assault along practically the whole of the new front; but they were beaten off at all points. The enemy drew back somewhat from in front of the southern portion of the ground conquered by the II. Army during the next few days, and on the evening of the I4th General Plumer's troops carried their line forward some distance on either flank. Their front thenceforward for some weeks ran almost in a straight line from where it quitted the line held on June 6, opposite the village of Frelinghien at the southern end, to Observatory ridge, situated a mile E. of Zillebeke, where it joined the line held on the earlier date. This represented a length of about nine miles. In depth, the ground wrested from the Germans opposite the centre of the old enemy salient was nearly three miles.
Some very important re-arrangements in the general dis- tribution of the Allied forces N. of the Lys were being carried into effect about the date of the battle of Messines and during the immediately following weeks, in preparation for the Flanders offensive that was to follow. The actual composition of the different British armies also underwent considerable change. Portions of the old IV. Army were moved N. from Artois, under command of Sir H. Rawlinson, to the extreme left of the Allies' line about Nieuport on the coast; this comparatively small IV. Army was to be expanded at a later date and was to play an important part in the operations, should the earlier stages prove as successful as was hoped. On its right were placed the Belgian forces. On the right of these again, and linking them up with General Cough's British V. Army, was brought in the French I. Army under command of General Antoine, which was to act under the orders of Sir D. Haig. Its right was a little N. of Boesinghe, where it was in contact with the Guards Div. which formed Cough's left; the V. Army front extended from thence to near the Ypres-Comines canal where it joined up with the left of the II. Army.
A pause of some weeks in active operations now took place in Flanders, the time being devoted on the side of the Allies to making the elaborate preparations that were necessary before the contemplated offensive could be launched. The lull was however interrupted by an unfortunate incident on the extreme left of the line. In the coast region, the front between Dixmude and the shore followed a line in rear of the Yser river and canal except quite close to the sea. There it crossed over the enemy's side of the waterway, thereby creating a somewhat isolated patch of territory, occupied by troops whose communications with the rear and with their reserves were dependent upon a few floating bridges. This patch consisted near the sea of sand- dunes which from their nature were particularly difficult to entrench. It had been taken over as it stood by the British ist and 32nd Divs. of the IV. Army and the ist Div. was on the left next the sea. Perplexed by the arrival of British troops on the coast and anticipating serious developments in this quarter, the Germans determined to strike a blow against the extremely vulnerable sector of the Allies' front lying on the right bank of
the Yser, and they delivered their attack on July 10. The front of the ist Div. beyond the river was on that day occupied by the ist Northamptons and the 2nd K.R.R.C. battalions which had been brigaded together since quitting Aldershot in July 1914. Early in the morning the isolated sector was subjected to an intense bombardment by a great number of guns which had been especially concentrated for the purpose. The bridges in rear were destroyed by shell. Dugouts and shelters were flattened out, and the difficulties of the two battalions were much aggravated by the explosions choking their machine-guns and rifles with sand. When the hostile infantry advanced to the attack the small British force was overwhelmed, only a few small parties eventually escaping by swimming the river. But although the enemy by this stroke gained possession of the left of the isolated sector, their effort against its right portion, held by the 32nd Div., failed. No evil result followed to the Allies, apart from the disaster to the Northamptons and Rifles.
Although the capture of the Messines-Wytschaete ridge and of most of the high ground on either side of Ypres-Comines canal gap had put an end to the enemy overlooking Ypres from the S., and tended to limit hostile observation of the place from the S.E., the Germans still dominated it, in a measure, from the E., from the N.E. and from the N. This circumstance exercised a very important influence over the arrangements that were being carried out for the offensive about to be undertaken, the first stage of which was to be directed in the main against the invader's defences sited on the high ground lying in a quadrant round the ruined town.
" The various problems inseparable from the mounting of a great offensive," writes Sir D. Haig in his despatch of Dec. 25 1917, " the improvement and construction of roads and railways, the provision of an adequate water supply and of accommoda- tion for troops, the formations of dumps, the digging of dugouts, subways and trenches, and the assembling and registering of guns, had all to be met and overcome in the new theatre of battle under conditions of more than ordinary disadvantage. On no previous occasion, not excepting the attack on the Mes- sines-Wytschaete ridge, had the whole of the ground from which we had to attack been so completely exposed to the enemy's observation. . . . Nothing existed at Ypres to correspond with the vast caves and cellars which proved of such value in the days prior to the Arras battle, and the provision of shelter for troops presented a very serious problem. The work of the Tunnelling Companies of the Royal Engineers deserves special mention in this connexion. It was carried on under great difficulties, both from the unreliable nature of the ground and from hostile artillery, which paid particular attention to all indications of mining activity on our part."
Preparations for the offensive could not in fact be concealed. The forces with which it was proposed to break out from Ypres and to gain possession of the high ground to the E., further out to the N.E., and still further out to the N., were assembled openly during the latter part of the month of July. The Ger- mans were perfectly well aware that they were going to be subjected to a very formidable attack in this region.
The portions of the coming battle-field that lay nearest to Ypres had already been the scene of fierce combats, which have been dealt with in Parts I. and II. of this article. But certain points in connexion with their topography call for some refer- ence, while the arrangements which the Germans had made for defence must also be described. The little river Steenbeke (or Jansbeke as it is called in its lowest reaches) joining the Yser near Merckem, creates together with its tributary streams, nearly all of which join it on the right bank, a feature that proved of con- siderable tactical importance during the prolonged operations that followed. The main stream and also the watercourses joining it flow northwestward or westward from their sources on the crest of the high ground between the Ypres-Menin road and the village of Passchendaele, with gentle spurs jutting out be- tween them. The most extensive of these spurs is that between the valley of the Steenbeke itself and the low-lying flats of the Yser immediately N. of Ypres, which had come to be known as
