e in the face of rifle and
machine-gun fire.

For a considerable distance along this part of the front the distance
between the German and British trenches was not more than two hundred
yards. At not a few sections the opposing trenches were near enough
to permit the soldiers to converse with their opponents. The trenches
for the most part were built on the marshland with sandbags, those
of the British being khaki-colored, and the German being black and
white. When the inevitable order to charge was given, the British
artillery shifted its range to the German rear and the Eighth Division
dashed over the black and white sandbags behind which the Germans
were crouching. Beyond them was a ridge, in horseshoe formation,
which was the last barrier that lay between the Allies and the
plains that led to Lille. This ridge trails off in a northeasterly
direction at Rouges Banes. Near the hamlet there was a small wood
which had been taken by the Pathans and Gurkhas before the cannonade
started. Among the regiments that led the attack of the Eighth
Division were the Kensington Battalion of the London Regiment,
the First Gloucesters, the Second Sussex, and the Northamptons.
They were supported by the Liverpool Territorials, the First North
Lancashires, the Second King's Royal Rifles, and the Sussex
Territorials. The Germans had large bodies of reenforcements held
at Lille, but they were unavailing; and the British took the first
line of trenches though it required fifteen and a half hours to do
it. Then they went on until they were on the slope of the ridge.
Beyond that, however, it seemed impossible to proceed, for the
Germans had such an array of machine guns trained on the approach
to their second line of trenches that no human being could live
in the face of their deadly fire. The British needed an equipment
with which to bombard their enemy with high-explosive shells. Such
an equipment they did not possess.

The German commander played a clever trick on the British when
their First Army Corps and their Indian Division attempted to make
progress in the triangle to the west of La Bassee. He evacuated
his first two lines of trenches while the artillery was doing what
it could to demolish his parapets; but his men were drawn up in
the third line of trenches waiting for the inevitable advance of
the British. This third line of trenches was protected with armor
plate and concrete. Moreover he had planted a large number of machine