FROM THE EDITOR'S CHAIR.
4
The Ypres Times.
Battle of Ypres may be said to have been ended. But, in revenge for their cheek, the
Germans started to destroy Ypres with incendiary shells at 16 hours on November 22nd
The famous Cloth Hall, the Cathedral and the Town Hall were destroyed by fire, and, at
the end of 24 hours the picturesque old town was all but a ruin.
During this fierce unending battle the men of the qth Corps were in action without re
lief for 552 hours. They entered the line with a strength of 27,000 rifles, and they lost
16,000 killed and wounded. Their conduct was mentioned in Army Orders. On Novem
ber 20th on leaving the neighbourhood of Ypres, General Douglas Haig wrote to the
G.O.C. 9th Corps as follows
Dear General Dubois,On leaving the neighbourhood of Ypres I write to express
my very grateful thanks to you and all ranks of the 9th Corps for the true comradeship
which they have at all time displayed towards the I. Corps and the troops under my
command."
With this number we begin a new year and so a
polite Editor's first task is to wish all his readers
a good New Year and to hope that his wishes will
be reciprocated for the Ypres Times, which has
now, as my Fleet Street friends say, established
itself among the periodicals of this country.
It has been an eventful year in every way and
not the least exciting events have occurred since
last issue and will be found duly chronicled
elsewhere in this number, which I hope you will
find as good as, if not better than, the October
one, which so many of you were good enough to
write and praise.
The feature I am most proud of I had no
hand in writing, and that was the competition
for our prize of for an episode of the War. The
response was splendid, as will be seen from the
report printed on another page. I read all the
stories myself, and was amazed at their range and
the way in which individual tales were told. I
must say I did not envy the judges the task of
final adjudication.
I am glad to say I was able to find room for the
episodes placed first and second in the competition,
and hope that perhaps in future issues we may be
able to print one or two more, but so many good
articles have been promised that our space is far
more limited than we should like.
Of other contributions I should like just to
mention an article which we have translated from
the French of a ver)' kind French contributor.
He speaks from knowledge of the Salient, for he
was through the fighting and is a member of General
Foch's staff. The official map which accompanies
this very interesting article has been set up for us
by Col. H. S. Winterbotham, C.M.G., D.S.O.,
and to him we owe very warm thanks for the great
trouble which he took.
In this issue we are printing some further
particulars about Sapper Hackett, the miner
V.C. In this connection may I ask our members
to send on any particulars they know of V.C.'s
gained in the Salienta complete list appears in
this issue. We should be extremely grateful for
photographs.
One of our readers, in sending us a little note
commending an article, hopes she is not wasting
our time." Well I do hope she and all our readers
will get that idea out of their heads once and for
all. It is no waste of time, however busy we are,
to read this sort of letter, for there could be no
greater encouragement than just to feel that our
readers are appreciating what we do.
Besides, it is only by such letters that we get an
idea of what our readers want. Sometimes we have
quite heated arguments as to what ought to go
in and what be left out, and it is of the utmost
value to us to know what our readers like and
would prefer us to give them. So, if you can afford
the time to write them, we can more than afford
the time to read them.
