, both
from batteries and submarines, ought not to be incurred except in an
operation of the first importance."

Admiral Hood, who afterwards fell so gloriously in the hour of victory
at the Battle of Jutland, was then in command at Dover. He was
responsible for the naval co-operation arranged for, and came to my
Headquarters on the 13th to discuss plans. It was arranged that at
daybreak on the 15th the advance from Nieuport was to be supported by
two battleships, three monitors and six destroyers.

I urged the Quartermaster-General to do his utmost to provide more
machine guns. At that time we had considerably less than one per
company, and it was an arm in which the Germans were particularly well
found. They must at that time have had at least six or seven to our
one.

In the operations now under discussion, this disability was
felt very severely. In discussing the progress of the fight with
General d'Urbal on the 15th at Poperinghe, he told me that the slight
and disappointing advance made by the French was due to their being
everywhere held up by machine-gun fire. He said the enemy had received
large machine-gun reinforcements, and he was then sending down special
guns in armoured motors to endeavour to crush them.

From all parts of the line the same complaint came of the
preponderance of the enemy's machine-gun fire.

The operations opened on the morning of the 14th by a combined attack
on the line Hollebeke--Wytschaete ridge. It began when it was hardly
daylight, at 7 a.m., by heavy artillery bombardment. At 7.45, the
French right (five regiments of the 16th Corps) moved forward and
captured the enemy's advance trenches on our left flank.

The 2nd Batt. Royal Scots and 1st Batt. Gordons (of Bowes' 8th
Brigade, 3rd Division) then advanced on Petit Bois and Mendleston
Farm. The Royal Scots seized and held the wood, which in the evening
they entrenched on the eastern side. They captured about sixty
prisoners, including some officers.

The Gordons at dusk had captured the enemy's trenches surrounding
Mendleston Farm, but were again driven out of them by a powerful
machine-gun counter-attack. They had to fall back on their own
trenches.

The French 32nd Corps attacked to the north of the 16th on the line
Klein Zillebeke--Zillebeke, and advanced some 200 to 300 yards. They
repulsed a German counter-attack from Zandvoorde and captured the
trenches in front of the chateau of Hollebeke.

As the French had not