Note 79 — THE ATTEMPT TO BREAK THROUGH SOUTH OF YPRES

Accurate details of the fighting which went on through the night of 31st October-1st November round Wytschaete are extremely difficult to disentangle. It seems that the 4th Cavalry Brigade was forced out of the village somewhere between 2 and 3 a.m., that the advance of the Germans was then held up west of the village, counter-attacks by two battalions of the 3rd Division, which had just arrived from La Bassée-Neuve Chapelle area, assisting to check them. Subsequently these battalions (1st Northumberland Fusiliers and 1st Lincolnshires) were also forced back, but by this time more French reinforcements were coming up with some of the 5th Cavalry Brigade, and their counter-attacks, though not wholly successful, prevented further German progress. But the admission of this account that two whole German regiments (six battalions) were engaged in the attack is a fine testimony to the resistance made by the 2nd Cavalry Division and attached infantry at Wytschaete with odds of more than two to one against them.