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The French had destroyed three German regiments, taken three redoubts, and captured four fortified lines and three villages. In this connection it may not be amiss to note that the French reported that, on May 15, 1915, the German Marine Fusiliers who were attempting to hold the Yperlee Canal concluded it was the better part of valor to surrender.
The line of the 28th Division ran thus from Gravenstafel to Fortuyn, which was still held by us, and along west to where the headquarters trenches crossed the St. Julien-Ypres Road at Vanenberghem, from thence almost due west to a part of the Yperlee Canal near Zwaante. The east bank of the canal was held by the French and Belgians.
Nothing daunted, the Zouaves put on their respirators and drove off with hand grenades and rifle fire the Germans who followed in the wake of the poisonous shells. On the following day it was said that the only Germans left alive on the left side of the Yperlee Canal were either wounded or prisoners.
Sharpshooters were left in the trenches, however, and they maintained such an appearance of activity and alertness that the Germans kept on shelling the trenches all of the following day. The attempt of General Putz to force the Germans back across the Yperlee Canal on May 4, 1915, was stopped by a combination of machine guns, asphyxiating gas and fog.
The Germans, however, advanced south of Dixmude. On April 1, 1915, they shelled the farms and villages west of the Yser and the Yperlee Canals, and took the Driegrachten farm. Thereupon the Germans crossed the canal with three machine guns. Their plan was to proceed along the border of the inundated district to Furnes.
The Teutons made several attacks from the St. Julien district against the section between the Yperlee Canal and the southern part of the village. By this time Geddes's Detachment was almost exhausted, they, with the Canadians, having withstood the heaviest fighting at the beginning of the battle; and most likely saved the Allies a most disastrous defeat.
As Bruges grew out of the rude fortress on the banks of the Roya, so Ypres developed from a stronghold built, probably about the year 900, on a small island in the river Yperlee.
From there the line ran almost north across Gravenstafel ridge to where Stroombeek Creek crossed the road from St. Julien to Poelcappelle, thence the line ran northwest past Langemarck to Bixschoote, on the Yperlee Canal which runs northwesterly. The British held the southern face of the salient as far east as Zonnebeke.
A portion of the 45th French Division was still hanging on to the extreme left of the French line. They had fallen back to try and conform with the general retirement on their right, but they pluckily determined to try and extend their ground by a counter charge near Pilken and regained some ground. West of the Yperlee Canal at Vlamertinghe the 1st Canadian Brigade was in billets.
A general survey of the front for the first days of January, 1916, reveals activity all round. In Belgium there was artillery fighting over the front of the Yser and along the front at Yperlee, and a similar duel between Germans and Belgians near Mercken. In front of the British first-line trenches the Germans sprang mines, but did not trouble to take possession of the craters.
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