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The Germans were firmly held on a line running from south of Ostend to Thourout, Roulers and Menin, the last mentioned place being on the border north of Lille. Flanking attacks being no longer possible, as the western flanks of both armies rested on the North Sea, the Germans were compelled to make a frontal assault along the line formed by the Belgian frontier.
Ahead of us I could see the smoke of a large town, and I told myself over and over again that there would be lots of water there, and food and clean clothes, and in this way I kept myself alive until we reached Roulers. Roulers is a good-sized town in West Flanders, of about thirty thousand population, much noted for its linen manufacture; and has a great church of St.
High above the trees and the distant red tiled roofs of Roulers I could see the spire of the Gothic Church of St. Michael. Beneath these walls on June 13th, 1794, a fierce struggle took place between the Austrians under Clerfait and the French troops under Marshal Macdonald, in which the French Republican troops of the latter were victorious. Beyond Roulers lay Ghent, Antwerp and Brussels.
This town lies on the frontier between Belgium and France, in the path of some of the most savage onslaughts on the part of the Germans to break through the allied lines in order to reach the channel towns of Dunkirk and Calais. On December 10, 1914, the allied forces made an ineffectual attack on Roulers, which the German General Staff had just left.
Roulers was temporarily occupied by the Allies on December 18, 1914, and in another location, about twenty-five miles farther southwest, in the neighborhood of Givenchy, the Allies' Indian troops were put to the test. The attack was launched on the morning of the 19th. The Lahore and the Meerut divisions both took part.
The officers reconnoitred the line during the afternoon, and towards evening the Battalion paraded and marched along the Rue de Stuers, the Rue au Beurre, past the Cloth Hall, through the Square, and the Menin Gate towards Potijze. Afterwards it took over the sector from the Roulers Railway to Duke Street with Headquarters in Potijze Wood.
The cloud which had followed the asphyxiating shells was in turn followed by a severe bombardment from three sides the east, northeast, and north. The principal attacks were made in the neighborhood of Shelltrap, the British front along the Roulers railroad, and along the Menin road in the vicinity of Bellewaarde Lake.
But now, comfortable-looking wooden houses stood along the shore, and Guynemer was himself again. On July 27, while patrolling with Lieutenant Deullin, his chum of Somme and of Aisne days in fact, his friend of much older times he brought down in flames, between Langemarck and Roulers, a very powerful Albatros, apparently a 220 H.P. of the latest model.
Next came the First Cavalry which held the line to the Roulers railroad. From the railroad to Bellewaarde Lake the Third Division held the line. From the lake to Hill 60 the Twenty-seventh Division had its position. The British admitted that this new position was not strong, because it lacked natural advantages, and the trenches were more or less of hasty construction.
He was quite cool about it, however, a worthy namesake of the great Marshal who had fought so valiantly beneath the walls of Roulers a few miles away. Lieutenant Smith, always cool and dour, a thorough Scot, was a man to be trusted in a tight place. Captain McKessock had a long talk with me about the machine gun positions.
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