During this pause the German Higher Command readjusted their plan. On the i8th the Army Group suggested that the main operations should be abandoned, and it was finally decided on the loth that further operations should be limited to the capture of Mt. Kemmel on the north, and the vil lages of Givenchy and Festubert on the south. No success what ever was obtained on the southern flank, but the attacks about Mt. Kemmel led to further bitter fighting.
At 3.3o A.M. on April 25 an intense bombardment was opened on the French and British positions extending from Bailleul to the Ypres-Comines canal. The main object of the attack was the capture of Kemmel hill by direct assault on the French, com bined with an attack on the British right south of Wytschaete, intended to separate it from the French. The attack was en trusted to the XVIII. Res., Alpine and X. Res. Corps, to which were allotted nine divisions, five of which were fresh. Between 6 and 7 A.M. the German infantry advanced, supported by large numbers of squadrons of battle planes and bombers. After intense fighting they succeeded by Io A.M. in wresting Kemmel hill and village from the French, detachments of whom, however, though surrounded, held out till late in the day. The weight of the initial attack on the British front fell on the 9th Div., who inflicted very heavy casualties on their enemy but by midday were forced back to Vierstraat. Further north the 21st Div., after a gallant resistance, was in the afternoon compelled to withdraw to a line Hill 6o-Vormezeele.
On April 26, 27 and 28 local fighting continued without sub stantial alteration in the situation. During the night of April 26-27 the salient east of Ypres was further reduced by a with drawal without interference to the line Pilkem-Zillebeke-Lake Voormezeele.
The German final effort took place on April 29. The action started with a bombardment of exceptional intensity at 3.10 A.M. At 5 A.M. powerful attacks commenced against the French and British troops from west of Dranoutre to Voormezeele. After
very heavy fighting the Germans gained a temporary success north of Locre, but were driven back by the French troops holding the sector. On the British front the positions held by the 21st, 49th and 25th Divs. were again and again attacked unavailingly by German infantry.
Thus ended the battle of the Lys. The second great German offensive had succeeded in penetrating the British front on a front of about 20 M. to an extreme depth of about 12 miles. A large number of towns and villages had been taken and nearly 30,00o Allied prisoners and 450 guns had been captured. But the attack had failed to gain its main objects. The lateral railway communication between St. Pol and Hazebrouck was still intact. Except for the detached hill of Kemmel, the high ground dominating the Poperinghe-Ypres road still remained in Allied hands. A pronounced salient had been formed in the Ger man front which was to cost them dear in the succeeding months. On the other hand, the British had been forced to abandon the almost equally pronounced salient east of Ypres, and with it all the ground which had been gained at so great a cost in the battle of Passchendaele the previous year. The losses on both sides had been very heavy. To achieve these results the Germans had em ployed 42 divisions, of which 33 were fresh ; 25 British divisions were employed, of which only eight had not been engaged in the battle of the Somme.
Kuhl, Entstehung, Durchfiihrung and Zusammen bruch der offensive von 1918 (1928) ; Ludendorff, Kriegserinnerungen (1919 ; Eng. trans., War Memories, 1919) ; Hindenburg, Aus Meinem Leben (Hanover, 1919; Eng. trans., Out of my Life, 192o) ; Schwarte, Der grosse Krieg
(1921-24) ; Overstraten, Des principes de la guerre a travers les Ages (Brussels, 1927) ; Sir D. Haig's Despatches (1919) ; Dewar and Bovaston, Sir Douglas Haig's Command 1915 1918 (1922) . See also WORLD WAR: BIBLIOGRAPHY. •