tory of our army." There is
yet another distinction that battle can claim: it was the first mighty
collision between Anglo-Saxon and Teuton in the history of mankind.
They had fought shoulder to shoulder in the past--never face to face.
French troops also took part in the battle; they consisted of
territorials, some cavalry, and Dubois's Ninth Corps; but the heaviest
blows were delivered with whole-hearted force and energy upon the
British line. This remarkable fight lasted nearly a month. During its
progress the Allies withstood some half a million German troops with a
force that never exceeded 150,000 in number.

Before the last thunderous echoes of Ypres had melted away in space,
dreary winter spread its mantle over the combatants with impartial
severity. During the next three months the opposing forces settled
down and heavily intrenched themselves and then began that warfare at
present familiar to the world, resembling huge siege operations. The
Allies were fighting for time--the Germans against it. The allied
commanders aimed at wearing down the man-power of the enemy by a
series of indecisive actions in which his losses should be
disproportionally greater than their own.

The most important events of the winter campaign were the fight near
La Bassee in December, 1914, where the British Indian Corps
distinguished itself; the fighting at Givenchy in January and
February, 1915; the battle at Soissons in January, 1915, where the
French lost some ground; the long struggle in northern Champagne
during February and March, 1915, where the French first made use of
artillery on a grand scale; and some considerable actions in the
neighborhood of Pont-a-Mousson and the southeast valleys of the
Vosges.

In March, 1915, the Allies began what has been described as a
tentative offensive. Between March 10 and March 12, 1915, the British
advanced about a mile on a front of three miles at Neuve Chapelle, but
the aim of the operations, which were directed against Lille, could
not be achieved. Early in April the French carried the heights of Les
Eparges, which commanded the main communications of the Woevre, an
action that led to a general belief that the Allies' summer offensive
would be aimed at Metz. But the plan--if it ever was entertained--was
abandoned toward the end of April, 1915, when the critical situation
of the Russians in Galicia made it imperative to create a diversion in
another area, where the effects would be mor