first time in "appalling conditions" and that there had been a "blend of blunders". On 15 August, Rupprecht wrote that General Erich Ludendorff had visited the army group and said that with the French preparing an attack at Verdun, an offensive on the eastern front could only go ahead if Army Group Crown Prince Rupprecht defended the Ypres Salient without reinforcement. Rupprecht considered this to be risky because of a lack of replacements, the 4th Army having suffered since 1 June. In 1931, Hubert Gough wrote that II Corps had gained valuable ground, which gave a view of German lines and removed the last German positions overlooking Ypres. The British were counter-attacked five times during the afternoon and the last attack pushed the 18th (Eastern) Division out of Glencorse Wood. In 1956, Wolfgang Foerster, the author of this volume of German official history, described the miserable living conditions of the troops in early August, the rise in the number of sickness cases and the casualties caused by the British artillery. The British tried to make piecemeal advances, covered by massed artillery-fire and on 10 August managed to advance up to at the junction between and . Prior and Wilson, writing in 1996, noted that the days of fine weather preceded the attack but the deluge on 8 August flooded the ground again. The British artillery had failed to subdue the German guns in the unusually rainy weather and the British had been severely bombarded before the attack. The German infantry could do little to resist, having spent too long in the front line and become demoralised. The British made good progress but German counter-attacks and machine-gun fire from Inverness Copse forced back the British until the "mere" advance of the 25th Division, was all that remained. The attack was a costly failure and did not even reach the second objective of 31 July; the only good feature of the attack had been to make it on the Gheluvelt Plateau. In 2007, Jack Sheldon wrote that on 10 August, the battlefield was still a bog and the British preliminary bombardment failed to destroy all of the pillboxes and blockhouses west and south-west of Polygon Wood. The Germans forced the British back close to their start lines with the support of the German artillery on the rear slopes of the plateau, directed by observers with a good view of the battlefield; Sheldon