THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES
“Quenched in a boggy Syrtis, neither sea
Nor good dry land—nigh foundered, on he fares,
Treading the crude consistence; half on foot.”
Paradise Lost.
The night of July 30 was dark and wet, and towards morning a fine mizzling rain blurred the outlines of the star shells that lit up the lines. Along fifteen miles of front the English and German guns had roared against each other all night.
The waiting men shivered in their wet assembly trenches.
About three o’clock on the morning of the 31st there was a lull in the firing. A low soaking blanket of Scotch mist had crept up and lay heavily enfolding the opposing armies. Zero hour was drawing near. All along the front, men were feeling for the little footholds above the fire-step.
At 3.50 the streaming darkness was rent along the seven miles of attack. Thermite and blazing oil flared out, and such a barrage as had not yet been crashed upon the enemy’s line, and infantry and Tanks scrambled and lurched in the darkness in and out of shell-holes over the torn and slimy ground.
The German front line fell at once along the whole seven miles. Until nearly eight o’clock men and Tanks could hardly get through the mud fast enough to come to grips with the enemy. On each Corps front there were many machines that got ditched on the enemy front line as they nosed about here and there, seeking to mop up lurking machine-gun nests and snipers.