and machine gun fire.

Incidentally, one of the houses held by the enemy was so knocked about
by our fire that its defenders bolted. On their way to the rear they
were met by reinforcements under an officer who halted them, evidently
in an endeavor to persuade them to return. While the parley Was going on
one of our machine guns was quietly moved to a position of vantage,
whence it opened a most effective fire on the group.

On our right one of the enemy's saps, which was being pushed toward our
line, was attacked by us. All the men in it were captured.

Wednesday, the 11th, was another day of desperate fighting. As day broke
the Germans opened fire on our trenches to the north and south of the
road from Menin to Ypres. This was probably the most furious artillery
fire which they have yet employed against us.

A few hours later they followed this by an infantry assault in force.
This attack was carried out by the First and Fourth brigades of the
Guard Corps, which, as we now know from prisoners, have been sent for to
make a supreme effort to capture Ypres, since that task had proved too
heavy for the infantry of the line.

As the attackers surged forward they were met by our frontal fire, and
since they were moving diagonally across part of our front they were
also attacked on the flank by artillery, rifles, and machine guns.
Though their casualties before they reached our line must have been
enormous, such was their resolution and the momentum of the mass that in
spite of the splendid resistance of our troops they succeeded in
breaking through our line in three places near the road. They penetrated
some distance into the woods behind our trenches, but were
counter-attacked again, enfiladed by machine guns and driven back to
their line of trenches, a certain portion of which they succeeded in
holding, in spite of our efforts to expel them.

What their total losses must have been during this advance may be gauged
to some extent from the fact that the number of dead left in the woods
behind our line alone amounted to 700.

A simultaneous effort made to the south, a part of the same operation
although not carried out by the Guard Corps, failed entirely, for when
the attacking infantry massed in the woods close to our line, our guns
opened on them with such effect that they did not push the assault home.

As generally happens in operations in wooded country, the fighting to a
great extent was carried on at close qu