(COMBAT OF LE BOURGET, 21ST DECEMBER.)--Le Bourget was held by only four companies of the Queen Elizabeth Regiment, and one Guard Rifle battalion. When the mist rose at a quarter to eight, there was rained on the garrison a heavy fire from the guns of the forts and many batteries, as well as from armour-clad railway trucks. Half an hour later closed hostile columns marched on the place from east and west. In the former direction its outskirts were successfully defended for some time against seven French battalions, and on the opposite side five more were brought to a halt by the quick fire of the defenders in front of the cemetery[60]; but a detachment of marine fusiliers penetrated unhindered into the village by its northern entrance. Pressed upon on all sides by overwhelming numbers, the defenders were compelled to fall back into the southern part of the village. The garrison of the cemetery also strove to force its way thither, but part of it fell into the enemy's hands. The French advanced only step by step, suffering heavy loss in bloody street-fighting, but they did not succeed in obtaining possession of the buildings or glass-factory. Five fresh battalions of the French reserve marched up from St. Denis on the gas-works, and battered down the garden-wall with cannon-fire, but still could not crush there the steady resistance of the Germans.
At nine o'clock the latter were reinforced by one company, and at ten o'clock by seven more companies, which in a bloody hand-to-hand struggle, fought their way to the cemetery and glass-factory. By eleven the last bodies of assailants were driven out, and Le Bourget, in expectation of a renewed attack, was occupied by fifteen companies. Two batteries of field artillery, which had been in brisk action on the Morée, were brought up to the village.
General Ducrot had meanwhile waited in vain for the signal which was to have announced the capture of Le Bourget. He had pushed forward the heads of his columns beyond Bondy and Drancy, when he was warned by the disastrous issue of the struggle on his left to abandon his intended attack on the line of the Morée.
The anticipated important enterprise lapsed into a mere cannonade, to which the German field-guns did their best to reply. In the afternoon the French retired from the field.