telling Foch (28 September) that a gap could be "rushed" just north of Hill 70, although Foch felt that this would be difficult to co-ordinate and Haig told him that First Army was not in a position for further attacks at the moment. Charteris wrote that "Sir John French is played out. The show is too big for him and he is despondent." The Battle of Loos was a strategic and tactical failure and has become one of the epitomes of a Great War battle in which generals showed complete disregard for the situations on the front lines the soldiers were facing. With only 533 guns and a shortage of shells to cover a wide 11,200 yard front with two German trench lines to bombard, the British would likely be attacking positions that had not been disrupted enough to allow a breakthrough. The British commanders at this time did not grasp that German tactical doctrine called for the second line of machine gun nests to be situated on the reverse slope of their hillside defenses; destroying them would need artillery with higher trajectories and shells with high explosives. By the time the Battle of Loos ended, around 8 October, the British suffered anywhere between 41,000 and 61,000 casualties, with most estimates for German casualties around 20,000. Criticism after Loos Criticism of French, especially for his slow release of the reserves on the first day (25 September), began to mount even while the battle was still under way. Haig wrote of French in his diary (2 October) "It seems impossible to discuss military problems with an unreasoning brain of this kind". Even French's trusted secretary Brinsley Fitzgerald recorded in his diary (5 October 1915) that French's "sudden moods are weird and marvellous but we never now even have explanations". Haig told Haldane (9 October) that French's handling of the reserves had lost the battle. Kitchener demanded an explanation (11 October). Haig told Rawlinson (10 and 22 October 1915) he could no longer be loyal to French after Loos. Haig also wrote to GHQ (21 October) claiming that fresh forces could have pushed through with little opposition between 9 am and 11 am on the first day. To French's annoyance the King arrived in France (21 October) to sample opinion for himself—French met him at Boulogne but was summoned to London for talks with Kitchener and the Dardanelles Committee. Gough and Haking