It was incidents such as these that made up the record of events along this line.  During all this time the military aeroplanes were busy dropping explosives upon the enemy’s lines, and extending their operations far to the rear, circling above the larger towns and cities, doing considerable damage in many places.  But this was not the only purpose of these daring sky pilots; for the principal object in flying over the adversary’s country was to make observations and report movements of troops.  In this respect the aeroplane had done immense service throughout the campaign.

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CHAPTER XXIX

GENERAL MOVEMENTS ON THE FRENCH AND FLANDERS FRONTS

We have seen that at the end of November, 1914, Ypres was still in the Allies’ hands, though the Germans were exerting a fierce pressure in that region, and were gradually, even if very slowly, getting closer and closer to it.

At the beginning of December, 1914, the Germans drew their forces close up to Ypres, so closely in fact that they could bring into play their small-caliber howitzers, and before many hours Ypres was in flames in many places.  The allied forces fought fiercely to compel the Germans to withdraw.  Hand-to-hand fighting, bayonet charges, and general confusion was the order of the day.  Thousands of men would creep out of their holes in the ground and crawl, availing themselves of whatever covering presented itself, to some vantage point and there stand up as one man and charge directly into the adversary’s ranks.

All this was part of the general scheme worked out miles from the spot where the conflict was going on.  There in some quaint little town occupying some out-of-the-way house was the General Staff.  The rooms were filled with officers; the walls were hung with large and small field and detail maps, upon which were plainly marked the name of every commanding officer and the forces under his command.  Every detail of the armies’ strength—­names of the commanders, and any other detail was plainly in view.

It was here decided to turn the entire command of the allied forces along the Yser over to the British to avoid confusion.  It was well that this was done just at this time, for on December 3, 1914, the Germans made a fierce onslaught along the entire front of thirteen miles between Ypres and Dixmude, bringing into use a great number of stanch rafts propelled by expert watermen, thus carrying thousands of the German forces over and along the Ypres River.

Again the belligerents came to a hand-to-hand conflict, and so well directed was the allied counterattack that no advantage to the Germans was obtained.  For three days this severe fighting continued.  The struggle was most sharp between Dixmude and the coast at Westende, where the Germans hoped to break through the allied lines, and thus crumple up their entire front, making a free passage.