is method
of attack.

Private Whittaker, Coldstream Guards, gives a vivid account of the
fighting around Compiegne. "The Germans rushed at us," he writes, "like
a crowd streaming from a Cup-tie at the Crystal Palace. You could not
miss them. Our bullets plowed into them, but still on they came. I was
well entrenched, and my rifle got so hot I could hardly hold it. I was
wondering if I should have enough bullets, when a pal shouted, 'Up
Guards and at 'em.' The next second he was rolled over with a nasty
knock on the shoulder. When we really did get orders to get at them we
made no mistakes, I can tell you. They cringed at the bayonets. Those on
the left wing tried to get round us. We yelled like demons, and racing
as hard as we could for quite 500 yards we cut up nearly every man who
did not run away."

One of the most graphic pictures of the war is that of attack in the
night related by a sergeant of the Worcester Regiment, who was wounded
in the fierce battle of the Aisne. He was on picket duty when the attack
opened. "It was a little after midnight," he said "when the men ahead
suddenly fell back to report strange sounds and movements along the
front. The report had just been made when we heard a rustling in the
bushes near us. We challenged and, receiving no reply, fired into the
darkness. Immediately the enemy rushed upon us, but the sleeping camp
had been awakened by the firing, and our men quickly stood to arms. As
the heavy German guns began to thunder and the searchlights to play on
our position we gathered that a whole Army corps was about to be engaged
and, falling back upon the camp, we found our men ready. No sooner had
we reached the trenches than there rose out of the darkness in front of
us a long line of white faces. The Germans were upon us. 'Fire!' came
the order, and we sent a volley into them. They wavered, and dark
patches in their ranks showed that part of the white line had been
blotted out. But on they came again, the gaps filled up from behind. At
a hundred yards' range, the first line dropped to fix bayonets, the
second opened fire, and others followed. We kept on firing and we saw
their men go down in heaps, but finally they swarmed forward with the
bayonet and threw all their weight of numbers upon us. We gave them one
terrible volley, but nothing could have stopped the ferocious impetus of
their attack. For one terrible moment our ranks bent under the dead
weight, but the Germans, too, wav