" Consider, too, the news which is still fresh as I finish this letter(June 11th)of the victory of Messines; perhaps the most complete, the most rounded successso farthat has fallen to the British armies in the war!

In June, 1917, the British began an attack on Messines and Wytschaete, in an effort to straighten out the Ypres salient.

Meanwhile the Germans had begun another attack in the Flanders sector, with the object of wresting from the British the control of Messines Ridge, which dominated the lowlands of Flanders and had been so gallantly won by the Canadians in the previous year.

April 16Germans capture Messines ridge, near Ypres; Bolo Pasha executed.

But Kippy, born within hail of a Kentish cricket-field, was not to be denied, and, after all, one cannot haggle about a mere garden with someone who was with the first battalions over the Messines Ridge.

Magnificent Switchback Railway up and down the Messines Mine Craters.

What I had listened to was the preliminary drum fire and bombardment that prepared the way for the great attack at Messines, near Ypresthe most terrific bombardment recorded in all history, up to that time.

There's a 'ell of a draught in 'ere" A Memory of Christmas, 1914 The Sentry A Messines Memory: "'Ow about shiftin' a bit further down the road, Fred?" "Old soldiers never die" Photograph of the Author.

But, however that may be, we were now booked for Wulverghem, or rather the trenches which lie along the base of the Messines ridge, about a mile in front of that shattered hamlet.

In front lay the long line of the Messines ridge.

From this point the road ran in a long straight line towards Messines.

One very soon sailed up, nice and white, into the inky sky, and I saw how we were placed with regard to the Germans, the hill and Messines.

Immediately on the other side the ground rose in a gradual slope up the Messines hill, and about three-quarters way up this slope were the German trenches.

Then, gradually, silence would assert itself once more and leave you with nothing but the rustling leaves and the crack of the sniper's rifle on the Messines ridge.

All that was left to mark the graves of those who had died to get our trenches where they wereat the bottom of the Messines ridge.

There was one trench that was so obscured along its front by odd stumps of trees that I decided the only good spot for a machine gun was right at one end, on a road which led up to Messines.

I imagined a German with a powerful pair of binoculars looking down on the plain from the Messines Hill, with nothing better to do than to see if he could spot some one walking about.

On the far side of the stream the ground gently rose in a long slope up to Messines, where you could see a shattered mass of red brick buildings with the old grey tower in the middle.

The capture of Messines Ridge, after the biggest bang in history, has given him something to think about.

To-day you can stand upon certain recently won eminencesWytchaete Ridge, Messines Ridge, Vimy Ridge, and Monchylooking down into the enemy's lines, and looking forward to the territory which yet remains to be restored to France.

And Wytchaete and Messines!