The 55th Division of Lancashire men, in their attacks on a line of pillboxes called Plum Farm, Schuler Farm, and Square Farm, below the Gravenstafel Spur, lost 3,840 men in casualties out of 6,049. Those were not uncommon losses. They were usual losses. One day’s fighting in Flanders (on October 4th) cost the British army ten thousand casualties, and they were considered “light” by the Higher Command in relation to the objects achieved.

General Harper of the 51st (Highland) Division told me that in his opinion the official communiqués and the war correspondents’ articles gave only one side of the picture of war and were too glowing in their optimism. (I did not tell him that my articles were accused of being black in pessimism, pervading gloom.) “We tell the public,” he said, “that an enemy division has been ‘shattered.’ That is true. But so is mine. One of my brigades has lost eighty-seven officers and two thousand men since the spring.” He protested that there was not enough liaison between the fighting-officers and the Higher Command, and could not blame them for their hatred of “the Staff.”