Woevre, and the Vosges made the trenches the best
of all on the western front. The greater part of these so-called
trenches, the like of which had never before been constructed,
could not be taken without a bombardment by heavy artillery. And,
in the rear of each line there was a series of other fortifications
quite as impregnable. This condition was a gradual growth which had
developed as a result of the increasingly new methods of attack.
As new means of taking life were invented, new means of protection
came into existence, until, for the present, the inventive genius
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 or 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 XIV

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
forc