Loos
a town in northern France, noted for a Cistercian abbey founded in 1181, it is said, by St. Bernard. It is now used as a prison. Before the World War (1914-1918) the population was 10,640. The scene of many struggles between the Germans and the forces of the Allies. The battle of Loos, begun on Sept. 25, 1915, was the greatest battle the British had engaged in up to that time in the war. The fighting continued with brief intervals for three weeks and from first to last twelve British divisions were used in the Loos area alone. The assault in the main area was LOPE DE VEGA on a seven-mile front delivered by two corps of General Haig's First Army.
The first corps was under General Gough, the fourth under General Rawlinson. The British gained in this battle 7,000 yards of front and 4,000 of depth. They captured 3,000 prisoners and lost 50,000 men and 2,000 officers.
LOPE DE VEGA (lō'pā dā vāgä), (LOPE FELIX DE VEGA CARPIO), a Spanish dramatist and poet; born in Madrid, Spain, Nov. 25, 1562. Lope, a man of adventurous disposition, led a very active life till he had attained mid- LOPE DE VEGA dle age. He served as a soldier, and narrowly escaped shipwreck in the Armada. On the death of his second wife, he took holy orders; but this step, though it removed him from business, did not slacken his literary activity. He was the most prolific of all authors, composing with a rapidity which, while it implied extraordinary talents, made it impossible that his works should possess high merit, either in design or in execution. Besides writing epics and many other kinds of poems, he produced a number of dramas, so great as to be almost incredible. He himself states it at upward of 1,500; and more than 500 plays attributed to him are actually in print. They embrace all the varieties of kind which are to be found among the works of his successor Calderon; and they abound both in snatches of wit and poetical fancy, and in ingenuity of dramatic invention.
LOPEZ Though Lope was not the founder of the Spanish drama, he was the first who made its romantic irregularities attractive through force and originality of genius. He died in Madrid, Aug. 27, 1635.