the end of November, 1914, Ypres was still
in the Allies' hands, though the Germans were exerting a fierce
pressure in that region, and were gradually, even if very slowly,
getting closer and closer to it.

At the beginning of December, 1914, the Germans drew their forces
close up to Ypres, so closely in fact that they could bring into
play their small-caliber howitzers, and before many hours Ypres
was in flames in many places. The allied forces fought fiercely
to compel the Germans to withdraw. Hand-to-hand fighting, bayonet
charges, and general confusion was the order of the day. Thousands
of men would creep out of their holes in the ground and crawl,
availing themselves of whatever covering presented itself, to some
vantage point and there stand up as one man and charge directly
into the adversary's ranks.

All this was part of the general scheme worked out miles from the
spot where the conflict was going on. There in some quaint little
town occupying some out-of-the-way house was the General Staff.
The rooms were filled with officers; the walls were hung with large
and small field and detail maps, upon which were plainly marked the
name of every commanding officer and the forces under his command.
Every detail of the armies' strength--names of the commanders, and
any other detail was plainly in view.

It was here decided to turn the entire command of the allied forces
along the Yser over to the British to avoid confusion. It was well
that this was done just at this time, for on December 3, 1914, the
Germans made a fierce onslaught along the entire front of thirteen
miles between Ypres and Dixmude, bringing into use a great number of
stanch rafts propelled by expert watermen, thus carrying thousands
of the German forces over and along the Ypres River.

Again the belligerents came to a hand-to-hand conflict, and so
well directed was the allied counterattack that no advantage to the
Germans was obtained. For three days this severe fighting continued.
The struggle was most sharp between Dixmude and the coast at Westende,
where the Germans hoped to break through the allied lines, and thus
crumple up their entire front, making a free passage.

On December 7, 1914, the French captured Vermelles, a minor village
a few miles southwest of La Bassee. This little village had been
the center of a continuous struggle for mastership for nearly two
months. At last the French occupied this rather commanding point,
important