The arrival of three French divisions in our line enabled us to resume
from the 4th to the 8th a vigorous offensive. On the 10th and 11th this
offensive, brought up against fresh and sharper German attacks, was
checked. Before it could be renewed the arrival of fresh reinforcements
had to be awaited, which were dispatched to the north on Nov. 12. By the
14th our troops had again begun to progress, barring the road to Ypres
against the German attacks, and inflicting on the enemy, who advanced in
massed formation, losses which were especially terrible in consequence
of the fact that the French and British artillery had crowded nearly 300
guns on to these few kilometers of front.
Thus the main mass of the Germans sustained the same defeat as the
detachments operating further to the north along the coast. The support
which, according to the idea of the German General Staff, the attack on
Ypres was to render to the coastal attack, was as futile as that attack
itself had been.
During the second half of November the enemy, exhausted and having lost
in the Battle of Ypres alone more than 150,000 men, did not attempt to
renew his effort, but confined himself to an intermittent cannonade.
We, on the contrary, achieved appreciable progress to the north and
south of Ypres, and insured definitely by a powerful defensive
organization of the position the inviolability of our front.
[The compiler of the report here adds a footnote saying that the bodies
of more than 40,000 Germans were found on the battlefield during these
three weeks of battle. The report next proceeds to summarize the
character and results of the operations since the Battle of
Flanders--that is, during the period Nov. 30-Feb. 1.]
Since the former date the French supreme command had not thought it
advisable to embark upon important offensive operations. It has confined
itself to local attacks, the main object of which was to hold in front
of us as large a number of German corps as possible, and thus to hinder
the withdrawal of the troops which to our knowledge the German General
Staff was anxious to dispatch to Russia.