Between Fortuin and Zonnebeke and south of St. Julien the allied line broke, but the supports with two cavalry regiments were rushed from Potijze, a mile and a half from Ypres on the Zonnebeke Road, and regained the lost ground. By night the Germans decided to discontinue their attempt to advance and left their dead and wounded on the field.
The Germans had only stopped the struggle for a breathing spell. On the following morning, Monday, May 3, they made an attempt to force the allied position back again. This attempt was made on the British left, west of the Bois des Cuisenirs, between Pilkem and St. Julien. The Germans cut their wire entanglements and, leaving their trenches and lying down in front of those protecting places, they were ready to advance; but, before they could start forward, the artillery of their enemy did such effective work that the Teutons returned to their trenches, and gave up an attack at that point. But they made an assault against the northern side of the salient which had by this time become very narrow. A German bomb wrecked a section of the British trenches, and the defenders of that part of the line had to go back of a wood that was a little to the northwest of Grafenstafel, where they were able to stop the German onrush.
The Belgians were bombarded with asphyxiating gas bombs beyond the French lines south of Dixmude. The Germans charged the Belgian trenches only to be cut down by machine-gun fire. That night, the night of May 3, 1915, an attack was made on the British front; but it was stopped by the artillery.
Sir Herbert Plumer in the meantime had been executing the order he had received from Sir John French, and shortened his lines so they were three miles less in length than before starting the movement. The new line extended from the French position west of the Ypres-Langemarck Road and proceeded through "shell-trap" farm to the Haanebeek and the eastern part of the Frezenberg ridge where it turned south, covering Bellewaarde Lake and Hooge and bent around Hill 60. This resulted in leaving to the Germans the Veldhoek, Bosche, and Polygon Woods, and Fortuin and Zonnebeke. This new front protected all of the roads to Ypres, and, at the same time, it was not necessary to employ as many soldiers to hold this line. Moreover the defenders of it could not be fired upon from three sides as long as they held it. In some places the British and German trenches had been no more than ten yards apart, but the difficulty of evacuating the British position was completed in safety on the night of May 3, 1915. The work included the taking with them 780 wounded. Sharpshooters were left in the trenches, however, and they maintained such an appearance of activity and alertness that the Germans kept on shelling the trenches all of the following day.