the
meantime a battalion of Highlanders and the Duke of Wellington's
regiment had been sent to reenforce the Bedfords and the West Kents.
The Highlanders made a desperate charge, using bayonets and hand
grenades on the Germans who had gained the southern edge of the hill.
The Germans were driven back.

The Duke of Wuerttemberg, the German commander, presumably believing
his troops had not only held what they had taken, but had advanced,
announced that another German victory had been gained in the capture
of Hill 60. Sir John French also sent out a message, but in his report
he set forth that Hill 60 was held by the British. Because there had
been similar conflict in official reports all too frequently, it
seemed as if a tacit agreement was made among the neutrals to
determine who was telling the truth. This resulted in making what was
a comparatively unimportant engagement one of the most celebrated
battles of the war. As soon as Duke Albrecht of Wuerttemberg discovered
his mistake he did what he could to make good his statement by
attempting to take Hill 60 without regard to sacrificing his men. Sir
John French was just as determined to hold the hill. So he moved large
numbers of troops toward the shattered mound, the British artillery
was reenforced, and the hastily constructed sandbag breastworks were
improved with all possible speed.

The Germans then attacked with gas bombs. Projectiles filled with gas
were hurled upon the British from three sides. The East Surrey
Regiment, which defended the hill in the latter part of the battle for
it, suffered severely. Faces and arms became shiny and gray-black.
Membranes in the throats thickened, and lungs seemed to be eaten by
the chlorine poison. Yet the men fought on until exhausted, and then
fell to suffer through a death struggle which continued from
twenty-four hours to three days of suffocating agony.

The German artillery kept up its almost incessant pounding of the
British. In short lulls of the big gun's work the German infantry
hurled itself against the trenches on the hill, using hand grenades
and bombs. The fight continued until the morning of May 5, 1915, when
the wind blew at about four miles an hour from the German trenches.
Then a greenish-yellow fog of poisonous gas was released, and soon
encompassed the hill. The East Surreys, who were holding the hill,
were driven back by the gas, but as soon as the gas passed they
charged the Germans who had followed t