The eyewitness's narrative published on Wednesday recorded
a great change in tactics—another desperate assault on the grand scale against the British line. During the previous days the Germans had evidently been bringing up rein- forcements to hurl against what they supposed would be an exhausted enemy. On November 11th they believed the right moment had come, and their great assault was delivered by the 1st and 4th Brigades of the Prussian Guard—the finest troops in Germany. The attack was met not only by a frontal fire, but by a flank fire, as the Prussian Guard moved diagonally across the British line. The losses of the Prussians must have been enormous, but " such was their resolution and the momentum of the mass that they succeeded in breaking through our line in three places." They then penetrated into the woods in the British rear and were exposed to an enfilading fire. Some fell where they were, refusing to go back and unable to go forward. Others ran back to some British trenches, which they held for a time. An idea of the losses of the Prussian Guard may be got from the fact that all those who entered the woods were captured if they were not killed, and that the dead alone found in the woods amounted to seven hundred. The German Emperor might adapt a famous remark of his grandfather and say : " My Guard has found its grave in the woods of Ypres."
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