We must now turn to the western battle line. In
the middle of the week there was considerable depression here owing to the news that the Germans had reoccupied Dixmnde, the unhappy small town which has been the scene of so much desperate fighting, and is now nothing but a heap of ruins. Friday's reports, however, show that quite undue importance was attached to the German advance here. Though the line now runs from Nieuport south of Di: made, and is practically the line of the canal between Nieuport and Ypres, the Germans have not been able to make any further progress in a battle which rages with terrible violence and attacks, counter-attacks, advances, and retreats. As the French com- munique of Thursday, published in Friday's papers, states : "The battle ground has not varied appreciably since the evening of November 10th." In the positions held by the British Army round Ypres there has been no change, but on Thursday afternoon it was reported that a body of the Prussian Guards, the very best troops at the command of the enemy, had made the fiercest attack upon a particular point in the line, but had been repelled. Unquestionably the three weeks' battle round Ypres will in the future rank as one of the greatest struggles in the world's history.
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