Progress with the proposed British flanking movement was, in fact,
seen to be impossible, and Sir John French recognized that the most be could do was to hold his positions with his thin lines till French reinforcements arrived from the south.
The principal German attempt to break through in October was on the 31st. Of this attempt Sir John French writes:-
" I was present with Sir Douglas Haig at Hooge between two and three o'clock on this day, when the 1st Division were retiring. I regard it as the most critical moment in the whole of this great battle. The rally of the 1st Division and the recapture of the village of Gheluvelt at such a time was fraught with momentous consequences. If any one unit can be singled out for special praise it is the Worcestera."
Everywhere the line, before and after that day, was held with insufficient reserves, and sometimes gaps were filled only by calling up men who did not strictly belong to the firing line at all.
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