World's War Events (Vol. 1-3). Various Authors

Ypres will be of decisive importance." It should be noted also that the Emperor proceeded in person to Thielt and Courtrai to exalt by his presence the ardor of his troops. Finally, at the close of October, the entire German press incessantly proclaimed the importance of the "Battle of Calais." It is superfluous to add that events in Poland explain in a large measure the passionate resolve of the German General Staff to obtain a decision in the Western theatre of operations at all costs. This decision would be obtained if our left were pierced or driven in. To reach Calais, that is, to break our left; to carry Ypres, that is, to cut it in half; through both points to menace the communications and supplies of the British expeditionary corps, perhaps even to threaten Britain in her island—such was the German plan in the Battle of Flanders. It was a plan that could not be executed.

      Dunkirk the first objective.

      The enemy, who had at his disposal a considerable quantity of heavy artillery, directed his efforts at first upon the coast and the country to the north of Dixmude. His objective was manifestly the capture of Dunkirk, then of Calais and Boulogne, and this objective he pursued until November 1.

      Ramscapelle retaken.

      Allies win the Battle of Calais.

      On October 23 the Belgians along the railway line from Nieuport to Dixmude were strengthened by a French division. Dixmude was occupied by our marines (fusiliers marins). During the subsequent day our forces along the railway developed a significant resistance against an enemy superior in number and backed by heavy artillery. On the 29th the inundations effected between the canal and the railway line spread along our front. On the 30th we recaptured Ramscapelle, the only point on the railway which Belgians had lost. On the 1st and 2d of November the enemy bombarded Furnes, but began to show signs of weariness. On the 2d he evacuated the ground between the Yser and the railway, abandoning cannon, dead and wounded. On the 3d our troops were able to re-enter the Dixmude district. The success achieved by the enemy at Dixmude at this juncture was without fruit. They succeeded in taking the town. They could not debouch from it. The coastal attack had thus proved a total failure. Since then it has never been renewed. The Battle of Calais, so noisily announced by the German press, amounted to a decided reverse for the Germans.

      The enemy had now begun an attack more important than its predecessor, in view of the numbers engaged in it. This attack was intended as a renewal to the south of the effort which had just been shattered in the north. Instead of turning our flank on the coast, it was now sought to drive in the right of our northern army under the shock of powerful masses. This was the Battle of Ypres.

      Importance of the Ypres position.

      British cavalry a connecting link.

      In order to understand this long, desperate, and furious battle we must hark back a few days in point of time. At the moment when our cavalry reached Roulers and Cortemark (October 28) our territorial divisions from Dunkirk, under General Biden, had occupied and organized a defensive position at Ypres. It was a point d'appui, enabling us to prepare and maintain our connections with the Belgian Army. From October 23 two British and French army corps were in occupation of this position, which was to be the base of their forward march in the direction of Roulers-Menin. The delays already explained and the strength of the forces brought up by the enemy soon brought to a standstill our progress along the line Poelcapelle, Paschendaele, Zandvorde, and Gheluvelt. But in spite of the stoppage here, Ypres was solidly covered, and the connections of all the allied forces were established. Against the line thus formed the German attack was hurled from October 25 to November 13, to the north, the east, and the south of Ypres. From October 26 on the attacks were renewed daily with extraordinary violence, obliging us to employ our reinforcements at the most threatened points as soon as they came up. Thus, on October 31, we were obliged to send supports to the British cavalry, then to the two British corps between which the cavalry formed the connecting link, and finally to intercalate between these two corps a force equivalent to two army corps. Between October 30 and November 6 Ypres was several times in danger. The British lost Zandvorde, Gheluvelt, Messines, and Wytschaete. The front of the Allies, thus contracted, was all the more difficult to defend; but defended it was without a recoil.

      French reinforcements.

      The arrival of three French divisions in our line enabled us to resume from the 4th to the 8th a vigorous offensive. On the 10th and 11th this offensive, brought up against fresh and sharper German attacks, was checked. Before it could be renewed the arrival of fresh reinforcements had to be awaited, which were dispatched to the north on November 12. By the 14th our troops had again begun to progress, barring the road to Ypres against the German attacks, and inflicting on the enemy, who advanced in massed formation, losses which were especially terrible in consequence of the fact that the French artillery had crowded nearly 300 guns on to these few kilometers of front.

      Thus the main mass of the Germans sustained the same defeat as the detachments operating further to the north along the coast. The support which, according to the idea of the German General Staff, the attack on Ypres was to render to the coastal attack, was as futile as that attack itself had been.

      Losses of the enemy.

      During the second half of November the enemy, exhausted and having lost in the Battle of Ypres alone more than 150,000 men, did not attempt to renew his effort, but confined himself to an intermittent cannonade. We, on the contrary, achieved appreciable progress to the north and south of Ypres, and insured definitely by a powerful defensive organization of the position the inviolability of our front.

      The war in Belgium.

      Siege of Antwerp.

      Belgian troops retreat to Ostend.

      The territory left to the Belgians.

      We have seen that, with the fall of Liège the German armies swept through Belgium on their way to Paris. Brussels was abandoned as the capital, and the Government moved hastily to Antwerp, where a portion of the Belgian army also gathered to defend the city. The remainder of the Belgian forces, under the leadership of their gallant King, opposed as stoutly as their numbers would permit the advance of the Germans. Battles were fought at Alost and Termonde in which the Germans were, for the time, repulsed, but their ever-increasing reinforcements enabled them to advance despite the efforts of the Belgians to check them. Ghent was captured on September 5 and the Belgians, in an effort to stay the German advance on Antwerp, opened the dikes and let in the waters of the North Sea. Termonde fell on September 13, and seven days later the German armies began the siege of Antwerp. The military authorities in command of the city had taken whatever measures were possible for defense. A body of British marines was hurried to the beleaguered city and preparations were made for a long siege. The Germans brought up guns of heavy caliber, with which they bombarded the city at long range. After a brave defense of two weeks, during which the inhabitants endured many hardships, it was plain that further resistance was useless, and the city was surrendered on October 10. The Belgian troops in the city, and many of the noncombatants escaped. The Belgian troops retreated to Ostend, which they reached on October 11 and 12, after having been greatly harassed by the pursuing Germans. On the 13th, Ostend was evacuated, and was occupied by the Germans, and Bruges on the following day. The German forces now controlled the whole of Belgium, with the exception of the northwest corner, north of Ypres, to the coast of the Channel. This little slip of territory they held throughout the entire war, and at what a cost! But the heroic defense of this territory by the Belgians saved the French coast cities and prevented the Germans from breaking through the line which extended now from the North Sea to Belgium.

      THE LAST DITCH IN BELGIUM

       ARNO DOSCH

       Table of Contents

      The Yser the Belgian's last ditch.

      A little piece of the Low Countries, so small I walked across it in two hours, was all that remained of Belgium in the last days of October. A tide-water stream, the Yser, ebbed and flowed through the sunken fields, and there King Albert with his remnant of an army stopped the German military machine in its advance on Calais.