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The trench system, winding through a mile or so of sand dunes, passed in a southeasterly direction through the marshy sector known as Lombartzyde. Here the bogged front lines were intersected by the Yser canal, the German front trench being some 80 yards away. Allied gas was installed in the Lombartzyde and neighbouring sectors ready for discharge on the first favourable opportunity.
"Three shots to one, sir," said Sir Henry Rawlinson to the King, "that's the stuff to give them!" But the Germans struck the first blow up there, not of importance to the strategical position, but ghastly to two battalions of the 1st Division, cut off on a spit of land at Lombartzyde and almost annihilated under a fury of fire.
The Belgians, in the meantime, assumed the offensive, their left being protected by the Allied fleet and the French forces in the neighborhood of Nieuport. These troops captured one of the smaller forts east of Lombartzyde on March 11, 1915. There was also fighting at Schoorbakke, north of the Yser loop, where the German trenches were shelled by French artillery.
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