The period at Ypres ended on a note of depression. One felt that the Division was beginning to doubt its ability to achieve the impossible. It was not the imminent menace of death from above in the form of shell or bomb, or from the trenches in front in the shape of machine-gun bullet. But the secrecy and furtiveness of every movement, the ghastliness of the abomination of desolation all around, the sickening sights and smells, the saturation of the whole terrain with gas to such an extent that men often preferred to lie out in the open under fire rather than risk suffocation in dug-outs—these combined to awaken a vague, inarticulate protest against the cruelty and futility of war. Had the men been able to get at those responsible for turning a peaceable countryside into something viler than any man’s imaginings of hell, indignation and righteous anger would have left little room for the depression generated by the sense of impotence—the beating one’s head against a concrete wall, the waste of effort and of lives thrown away in futile local assaults. The men were glad to quit the Ypres salient, but they did not leave it in a happy frame of mind. Every one felt that the Division was not at its best; that it was capable of better things had opportunity been given.
FREZENBERG RIDGE.
YPRES. SQUARE FARM, USED AS BATTALION HEADQUARTERS AND AID POST.
NIEUPORT. THE FIVE BRIDGES AND R. YSER.
NIEUPORT. “THE REDAN.”