But the fight at Ypres is only one part, as
we have said, of a threefold battle. On our right we have attempted an advance from Larentie and Reuse Chapelle, along the Aubers Ridge towards Lille. Oar attack began last Sunday, and it did not succeed because, as we learn from a moat important despatch from the Military Correspondent of the Times published on Friday, we lacked an "unlimited supply of high explosives." We are grieved to say that our losses were heavy, and there is no doubt whatever that they were chiefly due to the fact that we had not the means to obliterate the enemy's works. An endless amount of shrapnel will not do the work. What le
required—without it we cannot hope to advance firmly and steadily—is high explosive shell to smash the concreted trenches and gun emplacements into dust, to blow away the entanglements, and not to leave the enemy a fragment of shelter in which be can hide or work a machine gun or any other sort of gun. Unhappily our men found, after the artillery preparation which preceded their advance, that the German parapets had not been levelled and that dozens of machine-guns remained in position. These poured a remorse- less fire into our attacking lines, which could not advance for all their gallantry, which was as splendid as ever.
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