in succession the greatest of the war. The second
battle of Flanders ought rather to be compared to the battle on the
Somme, the real consequences of which were not completely visible till
the German recoil on the Siegfried line took place in March, 1917. While
the first battle of Flanders had closed the gates of Dunkirk and Calais
against the Germans, and marked the end of their invasion, the second
one drove a wedge at Ypres into the German strength, made formidable by
three years' daily efforts, secured the Flemish heights, pushed the
enemy back into the bog land, and threatened Bruges. In the first
battle, the French under Foch had been supported by the English under
Marshal French; this time the English, who were the protagonists, under
Plumer (Second Army) and Gough (Fifth Army), were supported by the First
French Army under General Anthoine.

It was as late as June that General Anthoine's soldiers had taken their
stand to the left of the British armies, and after the tremendous fights
along the Chemin des Dames and Moronvillers in April, it might well be
believed that they were tired. They had borne the burden from the very
first; they had been on the Marne and the Yser in 1914, at the
numberless and costly offensives of 1915 in Artois, Champagne, Lorraine
and Alsace; and in 1916, after the Verdun epic, they had had to fight on
the Somme. Indeed, they had only ceased repelling the enemy's attacks in
order to attack in their turn. Among the Allies, they represented
invincible determination, as well as a perfected military method. Those
troops arriving on June 15, on ground they had never seen before, might
well have been anxious for a respite; yet on July 31 they were in the
fighting line with the British. Two days before the attack they crossed
the Yser canal by twenty-nine bridges without losing one man, and showed
an intelligence and spirit which added to their ascendancy over the
enemy and increased the prestige of the French army. And while Marshal
Haig was finding such an exceptional second in General Anthoine, Petain,
now commander-in-chief, was aiding the British offensive by attacking
the Germans at other points on the front: on August 20 the Second Army
under Guillaumat was victorious on the Meuse, near Verdun, while the
Sixth Army under Maistre was preparing for the Malmaison offensive which
on October 23 secured for the French the whole length of the Chemin des
Dames to the river Ailette.

General An