General Haig now realized bow serious the situation had become and rrrade the most care ful preparations to meet it He drew in his lines from Passchendaele, thus shortening his lines and ridding himself of a sharp salient which it might be difficult to hold. To his men he sent a ringing order of the day 11 April, which shows in what situation was his army and in what spirit it was called upon to stand and fight. It ran as follows: ' Tame wcalca a.o the enemy began his terrific attacks sgainst us on a fifty trule front, His objects are to separate us from the IPrench, to take the Channel ports. and to destroy the British army. In spite of throwing already 106 divisums into the battle, and enduring the most reckless sacrifice of human life, he has made little toward his goals. We owe this to the determined fig ting and self sacrifice of our troops. Words fail me to express the admire, tion which I feel for the splendid resistance offered by ali mnks of our army under the most trying circumstances.
"Many among us are now tired. To those I would say that. Victory will belong to the side that holds out longest. The French anny. is moving rapidly and in great force to our support. There is no other couree open to us but to fight it out. Every position must be held to the last man. There must be no retirement. with our backs to the wall. and believing in the justice of our cause. each one of us must fight to the end. The safety of our homes and the freedom of mankind depend alike upon the conduct af each one of us at this critical moment.' The French began to arrive on the 16th. The five days' interval was a period of severe trial, the Germans slowly eating their way for ward. On the 13th there was an all-day desper ate struggle to hold Neuve Eglise and Wulver ghem, keys to Mont Ken:mei, a most important position, and success came but .by a hair's breadth. Despite these efforts the Wytsdmete Messines ridge was taken and a long swoop was made to the west of its lower extremity. From Ypres to the southwest lies a series of hills about six miles north of dm Lys River, making a barrier to Hazebroucic. The German attack had faced westward at first ; but it turned north westward after the fourth day, 12 April, and be came a furious struggle to carry these hills. Out in front of the group stands Mont ICemmel which the enemy had to take if he advanced on Hazebrouck He threw himself against it on 17 April in great strength and was repulsed with heavy losses. On the same day an attempt was made to break the lines north of Ypres. Ludendorff probably thought that the lines here would be wealc through withdrawals for the southern areas, and he employed numbers that would have over,vhelmed a wealc line of defense. If he had taken Haig unawares and
got behind the force in Ypres he might have made large captures of men and materials; but Haig was too careful to be caught napping. The northern line was held in strength and the attadc only resulted in heavy Gerznan casualties.
The attack on the Lys-Ypres sector went through the sante stages as the drive of 21 March. First came the furious onslaught against an enemy that could only fall badc shattered but filled with the determination to hold on to the last; then a desperate fight against time in the expectation of French reinforce ments; and at last the hardening of the line when the French arrived. On the Lys the first of these stages came on the 12th, the second lasted until the 18th, and the third lasted after a slight intermission, from the 25th to the 29th. In the second stage was die first attack on Mont Kenunel, whic.h was a failure. The position was 200 feet higher than the surrotmd ing hills and the Germans were very anxious to Mke it On the 25th they tnade heavy con centrations and carried the hill. Despite their great efforts they could not go farther. The French, who held this part of the front, and the British, who were to dte northeast, read justed their lines and stood at bay. On the 29th they received a tremendous attack from 11 divisions so massed that there were from six to eight bayonets to the yard. By sheer weight it succeeded at first, but The French delivered a swift and powerful counterstrolce which drove liack the assailants in some places nearly a mile and chedced their advance in all other p so that on the whole they lost rather than gist= on that day. General Ludendorff, as he says in his memoirs, decided that to continue his efforts to reach Hazebrouck was too oosdy and allowed the battle to come to an end.
When he opened the attack he expected it to be an action subsidiary to the fighting be-fore Amiens. The success of the initial attack was so great that he could not resist the temptation to follow it up, and at last he threw so much energy into it that the Amiens battle suffered. On 23 April he tried to revive that action by opening an attack on the section of the line between the Somme and the Ancre. Four divi sions were used and the town of Willem Bre tonneux was seized; but in a brilliant counter stroke the British recovered all that was lost and took 1,000 prisoner& The battle was not reopaied on this quarter. The German armies in the salient and on the Lys were too tired to continue the aggressive, and the fighting shifted to a field in which fresh troops were available.