[56] It is difficult to see how this assertion can be supported on the statements previously given, even apart from the fact that the German units were fresh and the British troops facing them reduced by previous heavy losses. The British claim to have held out against great odds is no more than the bare truth. The battalions of the 1st Division who had held up the attack of the 46th Reserve Division north-west of Langemarck on 23rd October were still in the line when the Prussian Guard attacked on 11th November—or rather a scanty remnant of them was: in the interval they had fought and held up a succession of attacks.
[57] The 7th Division had never left the line; a few battalions only had been given a day’s rest, but the division as a whole had not been relieved.
[58] These squadrons belonged to the 1st and 2nd Life Guards, each of which regiments had a squadron cut off when Zandvoorde was stormed. None of the III British Corps were in this area, the extreme left of the Corps being about the river Douve, south of Messines.
[59] There was no strong counter-attack in the Wambeke area: the very thin line of the 2nd Cavalry Division (perhaps 3000 rifles on a front of two miles) was forced back to a position much nearer Wytschaete and St. Eloi, where it received reinforcements amounting to about a brigade of French infantry.
[60] Messines ridge.
[61] The amount of work it had been possible to do there in preparing the position for defence had been very much restricted by lack of time and want of labour. ‘Deep trenches protected by broad wire entanglements’ is a much exaggerated statement.
[62] An attack was made by the Germans on Messines about this time, but was decisively repulsed.
[63] I and II Cavalry Corps. See [Order of Battle].
[64] The Germans at one time broke the line of the 19th Infantry Brigade on the right of the III Corps near Bois Grenier, but were dislodged by a counter-attack by the 2nd Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and 1st Middlesex. In Ploegsteert Wood there was also heavy fighting, the 1st Hampshires distinguishing themselves in particular by a very stubborn resistance.
[65] Except at Zandvoorde the German attacks north of the Ypres-Comines canal were not successful, and their success at Zandvoorde was brought to a standstill by the arrival of two battalions of the 1st Division under Brigadier-General Bulfin, and three of the 2nd Division under Brigadier-General Lord Cavan, whose intervention enabled a new line to be formed north-west of Zandvoorde. To the east of Zandvoorde the 7th Division was forced to fall back nearer to Gheluvelt, but east of Gheluvelt itself the Germans made no progress.