ents were rushed from
Potijze, a mile and a half from Ypres on the Zonnebeke Road, and
regained the lost ground. By night the Germans decided to discontinue
their attempt to advance and left their dead and wounded on the field.

CHAPTER XVII

THE STRUGGLE RENEWED

The Germans had only stopped the struggle for a breathing spell. On
the following morning, Monday, May 3, they made an attempt to force
the allied position back again. This attempt was made on the British
left, west of the Bois des Cuisenirs, between Pilkem and St. Julien.
The Germans cut their wire entanglements and, leaving their trenches
and lying down in front of those protecting places, they were ready to
advance; but, before they could start forward, the artillery of their
enemy did such effective work that the Teutons returned to their
trenches, and gave up an attack at that point. But they made an
assault against the northern side of the salient which had by this
time become very narrow. A German bomb wrecked a section of the
British trenches, and the defenders of that part of the line had to go
back of a wood that was a little to the northwest of Grafenstafel,
where they were able to stop the German onrush.

The Belgians were bombarded with asphyxiating gas bombs beyond the
French lines south of Dixmude. The Germans charged the Belgian
trenches only to be cut down by machine-gun fire. That night, the
night of May 3, 1915, an attack was made on the British front; but it
was stopped by the artillery.

Sir Herbert Plumer in the meantime had been executing the order he had
received from Sir John French, and shortened his lines so they were
three miles less in length than before starting the movement. The new
line extended from the French position west of the Ypres-Langemarck
Road and proceeded through "shell-trap" farm to the Haanebeek and the
eastern part of the Frezenberg ridge where it turned south, covering
Bellewaarde Lake and Hooge and bent around Hill 60. This resulted in
leaving to the Germans the Veldhoek, Bosche, and Polygon Woods, and
Fortuin and Zonnebeke. This new front protected all of the roads to
Ypres, and, at the same time, it was not necessary to employ as many
soldiers to hold this line. Moreover the defenders of it could not be
fired upon from three sides as long as they held it. In some places
the British and German trenches had been no more than ten yards apart,
but the difficulty of evacuating the British position was