The Battles in Flanders, From Ypres to Neuve Chapelle #252709

Ever since the middle of November last there has been on the West front in the present war what many have called and considered a deadlock. In the account which follows of that part of the campaign represented by the battles in Flanders the true character of the great and brilliant military scheme by means of which, and against apparently impossible odds, the Allied com manders succeeded in reducing the main fighting forces of Germany to impotence, and in defeating the purposes of the invasion, will, I hope, become clear. The success or failure of that scheme depended upon the issue of the Battle of Ypres. Not only was that great battle the most pro longed, furious, and destructive clash of arms yet known, but upon it also, for reasons which in fact disclose the real history of this struggle, hung the issue of the War as a whole. N o accident merely of a despot's desires caused the fury and the terror of Ypres. It was the big bid of Prussian Militarism for supremacy. Equally in the ter rible and ghastly defeat it there sustained Prus sian Militarism faced its doom.