The Seed of Empire by Fred M. White

The mysterious Venables had spoken no more than the truth when he had declared that the Germans had massed six hundred thousand men in the neighbourhood of La Bassee and Ypres. Probably General French had some shrewd idea of this fact; certainly he did not underrate the magnitude of the task that lay before him. He knew, too, that for the moment, at any rate, he could expect little or nothing in the way of reinforcements from England, so that in the coming strife he would have to make the best of the little force that had stood him in such good stead during the last two months. The big outflanking movement was still going on, a movement by which the French were compelled to retire the left of their line, abandoning Lille and concentrating on La Bassee, which town itself was already practically in German hands. But it might be possible to hold the heights behind La Bassee a little longer, and here the French had made a stand and dug themselves in.

All this time the gap between La Bassee and the sea was open to the enemy, and the allies were hard put to it to keep them back here. It was managed for a few days by dragging out the Belgian line until it began to wear dangerously thin like a piece of over-stretched elastic. Here, too, were French Territorials, mostly men over forty, doing their best and fighting to the breaking point.