Germans were preparing an attack, but were prevented from
carrying it out by French and British barrier fires.

On the British front the artillery was hardly less active than in
Artois. On one section, according to a German report, the British
fired 1,700 shrapnel shells, 700 high explosive shells, and about the
same number of bombs within twenty-four hours. On January 27, 1916,
the Germans attempted an infantry attack on a salient northeast of
Loos, but were held back. A British night attack on the German
trenches near Messines, Flanders, was likewise repulsed. In the
morning of February 12, 1916, the Germans broke into the British
trenches near Pilkellen, but were pushed out by bombing parties. There
was much mining activity about Hulluch and north of the Ypres-Comines
Canal. At the latter place some desperate underground fighting
occurred between sappers. On the 14th the Germans were again engaged
in serious operations in the La Bassee region, where they exploded
seven mines on the British front.

By February 15, 1916, the British first-line trenches on a 600 to 800
yards' front fell to the Germans in assaults on the Ypres salient,
carried by a bayonet charge after artillery preparation. Most of the
defenders were killed and forty prisoners taken. The assaults extended
over a front of more than two miles. The trench now captured by the
Germans had frequently changed hands during the past twelve months,
and for that reason was facetiously called "the international trench."
The brunt of the fighting here fell upon the Canadians, who were
withdrawn from the trench owing to the furious bombardment, and
sheltered in the second-line trench. The German infantry consequently
met with no opposition at the former, but when they approached the
latter the Canadians opened a murderous fire with rifles and machine
guns, dropping their enemies in hundreds. A few, however, managed to
reach the trenches, when the Canadians sprang out and charged with
bayonets, rushed the Germans back to and across the first-line
trenches again, which were then reoccupied. It was the Canadian First
Division that had blocked the German path to Calais in the spring of
1915 almost at the same point.

Activity on the west front on the 18th was largely confined to the
Ypres district. British troops attempted to recapture their positions
to the south of Ypres, simultaneously bombarding the German trenches
to the north of the Comines Canal. By February 2