The method was effectual, during the winter, at least, in retarding the German advance.  Their artillery destroyed the towns behind the opposing trenches of the Allies, but their attempts to advance through the flood failed.

Even where the floods were shallow—­only two feet or so—­they served their purpose in masking the character of the land.  From a wading depth of two feet, charging soldiers stepped frequently into a deep ditch and drowned ignominiously.

It is a noble thing, war!  It is good for a country.  It unites its people and develops national spirit!

Great poems have been written about charges.  Will there ever be any great poems about these men who have been drowned in ditches?  Or about the soldiers who have been caught in the barbed wire with which these inland lakes are filled?  Or about the wounded who fall helpless into the flood?

The inland lakes that ripple under the wind from the sea, or gleam silver in the light of the moon, are beautiful, hideous, filled with bodies that rise and float, face down.  And yet here and there the situation is not without a sort of grim humour.  Brilliant engineers on one side or the other are experimenting with the flood.  Occasionally trenches hitherto dry and fairly comfortable find themselves unexpectedly filling with water, as the other side devises some clever scheme for turning the flood from a menace into a military asset.

In No Man’s Land are the outposts.

The fighting of the winter has mystified many noncombatants, with its advances and retreats, which have yet resulted in no definite change of the line.  In many instances this sharp fighting has been a matter of outposts, generally farms, churches or other isolated buildings, sometimes even tiny villages.  In the inundated portion of Belgium these outposts are buildings which, situated on rather higher land, a foot or two above the flood, have become islands.  Much of the fighting in the north has been about these island outposts.  Under the conditions, charges must be made by relatively small bodies of men.  The outposts can similarly house but few troops.

They are generally defended by barbed wire and a few quick-firing guns.  Their purpose is strategical; they are vantage points from which the enemy may be closely watched.  They change sides frequently; are won and lost, and won again.

Here and there the side at the time in command of the outpost builds out from its trenches through the flood a pathway of bags of earth, topped by fascines or bundles of fagots tied together.  Such a path pays a tribute of many lives for every yard of advance.  It is built under fire; it remains under fire.  It is destroyed and reconstructed.

When I reached the front the British, Belgian and French troops in the north had been fighting under these conditions for four months.  My first visit to the trenches was made under the auspices of the Belgian Ministry of War.  The start was made from the Mairie in Dunkirk, accompanied by the necessary passes and escorted by an attache of the Military Cabinet.