On the following day October 31, 1914, the crisis came.  The fighting began along the Menin-Ypres road early in the morning and advanced with great violence upon the village of Gheluvelt.  The First and Third Brigades or the First Division were swept back and the First Coldstream Guards were wiped out as a unit.  The whole division was driven back from Gheluvelt to the woods between Veldhoek and Hooge.  The allied headquarters at Hooge were shelled.  General Lomas was wounded and six or the staff officers were killed.

The Royal Fusiliers who desperately stuck to their trenches fighting savagely were cut off and destroyed.  Out of a thousand but seventy soldiers remained.  Between two and three o’clock there occurred the most desperate fighting seen in the battle of Ypres.  At 2:30 o’clock in the afternoon the Allies recaptured Gheluvelt at the point of the bayonet and by evening the Allies had regained their position.  Ypres had not been captured by the Germans by this time, but they had secured their position in all the suburbs of Ypres and had that city at their mercy, provided allied reenforcements ordered up did not obstruct their path.

The fighting still continued for part of November, 1914, but for the month of October no definite result was to be recorded.

At Ypres, on November 2, 1914, the Germans captured 2,300 English troops and many machine guns.  Dixmude was stormed by the Germans on the 10th of November, and they crossed the Yser Canal, capturing the Allies position west of Langemark, also driving them out of St. Eloi.  Snow and floods interfered with the fighting along the battle front.  Ypres was bombarded on several occasions and was repeatedly set on fire.

November 11, 1914, was another day of severe fighting.  At daybreak the Germans opened fire on the allied trenches to the north and south of the road from Menin to Ypres.  After a furious artillery fire the Germans drove their men forward in full force.  This attack was carried out by the First and Fourth brigades of the Prussian Guard Corps which had been especially selected to capture Ypres if possible, since that task had proved too heavy for the infantry of the line.  As the Germans surged forward they were met by a frontal fire from the allied lines, and as they were moving diagonally across part of the allied front, they were also attacked on the flank by the English artillery.  Though the casualties of the Germans were enormous before they reached the English lines, such was their resolution and the momentum of the mass that, in spite of the splendid resistance of the English troops, the Germans succeeded in breaking through the allied lines in several places near the road.  They penetrated some distance into the woods behind the English trenches, where some of the bloodiest fighting of the entire war took place.

On November 12, 1914, comparative quiet reigned and with the exception of artillery duels and some desultory fighting no results were obtained on either side.  The British report makes this comment on this attempt upon Ypres:  “Their (the Prussian Guard Corps’) dogged perseverance in pursuance of their objective claims wholehearted admiration.