[76] The left of the XV Corps, which was in action against the detachments under Brigadier-Generals Bulfin and Lord Cavan, and the right of the 7th Division, in the woods later known as Shrewsbury Forest, was successfully held in check: it gained but a little ground, and at one point a most successful counter-attack drove the Germans back a long way, many casualties being inflicted and prisoners taken.
[77] The Staffs of both 1st and 2nd Divisions were there. Major-General Lomax, commanding the 1st Division, and Major-General Munro, commanding the 2nd Division, were wounded. Neither was killed, but the former died many months after of his wounds.
[78] During the course of 31st October French reinforcements of the XVI Corps had arrived and were taking over the left of the line held by the Cavalry Corps, relieving the 3rd and 5th Cavalry Brigades north-west of Hollebeke and south-east of St. Eloi. The French were, however, unable to make much ground by their counter-attacks, and further to the British right the 4th Cavalry Brigade was heavily pressed. It was here that the London Scottish were put in to recover trenches which had been lost east of the Messines-Wytschaete road.
[79] Accurate details of the fighting which went on through the night of 31st October-1st November round Wytschaete are extremely difficult to disentangle. It seems that the 4th Cavalry Brigade was forced out of the village somewhere between 2 and 3 a.m., that the advance of the Germans was then held up west of the village, counter-attacks by two battalions of the 3rd Division, which had just arrived from La Bassée-Neuve Chapelle area, assisting to check them. Subsequently these battalions (1st Northumberland Fusiliers and 1st Lincolnshires) were also forced back, but by this time more French reinforcements were coming up with some of the 5th Cavalry Brigade, and their counter-attacks, though not wholly successful, prevented further German progress. But the admission of this account that two whole German regiments (six battalions) were engaged in the attack is a fine testimony to the resistance made by the 2nd Cavalry Division and attached infantry at Wytschaete with odds of more than two to one against them.
[80] The forces available for the defence of Messines were the 1st Cavalry Division, much reduced by the previous fighting, assisted by portions of the 57th Rifles (Lahore Division) and two battalions of the 5th Division (the 2nd King’s Own Scottish Borderers, 2nd King’s Own Yorkshire L.I., both recently relieved from the trenches near Neuve Chapelle and much below strength). The twelve battalions of the 26th (Würtemburg) Division were thus in overwhelming superiority. The only artillery available to assist the defence were the 13-pounders of the R.H.A. batteries attached to the Cavalry Corps.
[81] i.e. Würtemburg.
[82] This is not accurate. Poezelhoek Château had to be evacuated during the night of 31st October-1st November, owing to the withdrawal of the line made necessary by the loss of Gheluvelt; but the Germans did not molest the retirement to the new position, and such attempts as they made in the course of 1st November to press on westward beyond Gheluvelt were unsuccessful. The British accounts do not give the impression that the German attacks on this day were very heavily pressed in this quarter; at any rate they failed to make any ground.
[83] The hardest fighting of 1st November in the Ypres salient was in the area north-west of Zandvoorde where the detachments under Brigadier-Generals Bulfin and Lord Cavan were sharply engaged, as were also the remnants of the 7th Division, now holding a position south-east and south of the Herenthage Wood. A feature of this day’s fighting was a counter-attack by the 26th Field Company R.E., acting as infantry in default of any infantry reserves, which checked the efforts of the Germans to advance north of Groenenburg Farm (north-west of Zandvoorde).
[84] The Indian units hitherto employed under the Cavalry Corps (57th Rifles and 129th Baluchis) had already been withdrawn to Kemmel, and were not in action near Oosttaverne on 1st November. This account of the ‘treacherous methods of the Indians’ smacks of the conventional; it is what was attributed to the Ghurkhas in some sections of the German Press, and seems inserted rather to excite odium against the British for calling in Asiatics to oppose the disciples of ‘Kultur.’
[85] French Divisions. By the afternoon of 1st November the French had taken over the defence of Wytschaete. The 2nd Cavalry Division assembled on a line east of Kemmel and Wulverghem.