Though the casualties of the Germans were enormous
before they reached the English lines, such was their resolution and
the momentum of the mass that, in spite of the splendid resistance
of the English troops, the Germans succeeded in breaking through
the allied lines in several places near the road. They penetrated
some distance into the woods behind the English trenches, where
some of the bloodiest fighting of the entire war took place.
On November 12, 1914, comparative quiet reigned and with the exception
of artillery duels and some desultory fighting no results were
obtained on either side. The British report makes this comment on
this attempt upon Ypres: "Their (the Prussian Guard Corps') dogged
perseverance in pursuance of their objective claims wholehearted
admiration.
"The failure of one great attack, heralded as it was by an impassioned
appeal to the troops made in the presence of the emperor himself,
but carried out by partially trained men, has been only the signal
for another desperate effort in which the place of honor was assigned
to the corps d'elite of the German army.
"It must be admitted that the Guard Corps has retained that reputation
for courage and contempt of death which it earned in 1870, when
Emperor William I, after the battle of Gravelotte, wrote: 'My Guard
has formed its grave in front of St. Privat,' and the swarms of
men who came up bravely to the British rifles in the woods around
Ypres repeated the tactics of forty-four years ago, when their
dense columns, toiling up the slopes of St.
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