The Zandvoorde trenches passed into the hands of the enemy soon after nine, and the Germans at once swarmed into them and began making their way along towards the north, till they reached a position from which they could get the Welsh Fusiliers in flank. Then began the annihilation of this very gallant regiment. From the moment that the Zandvoorde trenches went, its position was hopeless, its right flank being completely unprotected, and its own trenches disconnected and ill-adapted for mutual protection. The regiment, however, fought as it had fought on the 19th and again on the 20th and 21st. It fought, in the words of the C. in C., "till every officer had been killed or wounded; only ninety men rejoined the brigade." As a matter of fact, the exact number of survivors out of a battalion which a fortnight earlier had numbered 1,100 was 86, and these were shortly afterwards absorbed into the 2nd Queen's, their only remaining officer being the Quartermaster.
Among those that fell on that day were Captain Barker, Col. Cadogan and his Adjutant, Lieut. Dooner. The latter was killed in a very gallant attempt to cross the interval which divided the trenches, and investigate the state of affairs on the right; and the Colonel fell in an equally gallant attempt to rescue his subordinate after he had fallen.
The position was now--as may be supposed--extremely serious, the enemy being in complete possession of the Zandvoorde ridge. The 7th C.B. (Household Cavalry), when it had fallen back in the morning, had retired through the 6th C.B. and formed up in rear.
Its retreat had been greatly assisted by the magnificent work of the two Horse Artillery Batteries attached, viz., "C" Battery, under Major White, and "K" Battery, under Major Lamont. Both displayed the greatest daring and activity, and the latter succeeded in completely knocking out a German battery which was just coming into action on the Zandvoorde ridge.
In the meanwhile, the only force which stood in the way of the enemy was the 6th C.B., that is to say, three cavalry regiments, all considerably weakened by fighting. The gravity of the situation lay in the fact that if the Klein Zillebeke position went, there was nothing further to prevent the enemy marching straight into Ypres, only three miles distant, in which case the 1st A.C. and 7th Division would have been irretrievably cut off from their base and supplies, and the capture or annihilation of these three divisions would have inevitably followed.