oops to a more
deadly fire from three sides. It was evident that the Allies must make
a counterattack. General Riddell's Brigade was sent to Fortuin and
with the Lahore Division on its left was told to retake St. Julien and
the woods to the west of the village. Beyond the Yperlee Canal, on the
left, the French made an assault on Lizerne, supported by the Belgian
artillery; while the French colonial soldiers poured on Pilkem from
the sector about Boesinghe. On the right the allied troops were lined
up as follows: the Connaught Rangers, Fifty-seventh Wilde's Rifles,
the Ferozepore Brigade, the 129th Baluchis, the Jullundur Brigade, and
General Riddell's battalions. The Sirhind Brigade was held in reserve.

The German artillerymen apparently knew the distances and topography
of the entire region and poured a leaden hail upon the allied troops.
The Indians and the British in their immediate neighborhood charged in
short rushes, losing many men in the attempt to reach the German
trenches. Before the Germans were in any danger of a hand-to-hand
struggle, they sent one of their gas clouds from their trenches and
the attack was abandoned, the British and Indians getting back to
their trenches as best they could. In this action the British gave
great praise to their comrades from India. Riddell's Brigade was
stopped in its attack on St. Julien by wire entanglements; and, though
the outlaying sections of St. Julien were captured, the brigade was
unable to hold them; and the Germans continued to hold the woods west
of the village. Nevertheless the British front had been pushed forward
from 600 to 700 yards in some places.

By that night, the night of April 26, 1915, the allied front extended
from the north of Zonnebeke to the eastern boundary of the
Grafenstafel ridge; thence southwest along the southern side of the
Haanabeek to a point a half mile east of St. Julien; thence, bending
around that village, it ran to Vamhuele--called the "shell trap"--farm
on the Ypres-Poelcappelle road. Next it proceeded to Boesinghe and
crossed the Yperlee Canal, passing northward of Lizerne after which
were the French and the Belgians.

The work of the allied aviators on April 26, 1915, deserves more than
passing consideration in the record of that day's fighting. They
dropped bombs on the stations of Courtrai, Roubaix, Thielt, and
Staden. They discovered near Langemarck an armored train with the
result that it was shelled and thus forced to re