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 quarters.  It was most desperate and confused.  Scattered bodies of the enemy who had penetrated into the woods in the rear of our position could neither go backward nor forward, and were nearly all killed or captured.

The portion of the line to the southeast of Ypres held by us was heavily shelled, but did not undergo any very serious infantry attack.  That occupied by the French, however, was both bombarded and fiercely assaulted.  On the rest of our front, save for the usual bombardment, all was comparatively quiet.