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enius of man seemed to be at a standstill. But all this activity and preparation at the front meant a greater activity in the rear of the opposing lines. Fighting men were a necessity; but, under existing conditions of warfare, they were useless unless they were kept supplied by an army of artisans and another army of men to transport munitions to the soldiers on the firing line. In fact it was being forced on the minds of the commanding officers that the war could be won in the workshop and laboratory rather than on the battle field. CHAPTER XXVI BELGO-GERMAN OPERATIONS For the most part the activity of the Belgian army in February, 1915, consisted of a continuous succession of advanced-post encounters, in which detachments of from thirty to forty soldiers fought with the Germans on the narrow strips of land which remained inundated, while the artillery of the contending forces bombarded the trenches and the machine-gun forts. The intermittent artillery duel continued through the forepart of February, 1915, and on February 14, 1915, the Germans bombarded Nieuport, Bains and the Dune trenches, and continued the bombardment on February 15, 1915, and again on February 20, 1915. Near Dixmude on February 28, 1915, the Belgian artillery demolished two of the German trenches, and their infantry occupied a farm on the right bank of the Yser. One of their aviators dropped bombs on the harbor station at Ostend. By the beginning of March, 1915, strips of dry land began to be seen in the flooded region; and, along these, the Belgians advanced at Dixmude and the bend of the Yser. They won additional bridgeheads on the northern bank of the river. By the middle of the month, March, 1915, the Belgians had obtained a strategical point by possessing Oudstuyvenkerke on the Schoorbakke highway. From there they could force the Germans back until they were in a position that would prevent any German action against the Dixmude bridgehead. On March 18, 1915, the Belgian army continued its progress on the Yser, and on March 23, 1915, the artillery destroyed several German observation points. A division of the Belgian army made some progress on the right bank of the Yser on March 24, 1915; while another was taking a German trench on the left bank. The almost continuous artillery fighting was more active in the Nieuport region on March 26, 1915; and farther south a farm north of St. Georges in advance of the allied lines wa
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