FOOTNOTES:

It's a long, long way to Tipperary.

Apparently Ghent lies on the road to this goal, for theTommiescan never have been gayer. These fine troops, which advanced to the firing line as if they had been going to a Thames regatta, were the admiration not only of the citizens of Ghent, but of our own sailors, who felt an unexpected tenderness for them. Had not the hereditary foe become our staunchest ally? "We look upon them as brothers," wrote a sailor of the Passage Lauriec to his family next day.

Reinforcedby two of their battalions and the Belgian troops of the sector, we were ordered to hold our former positions in the loop of the Scheldt. But towards noon, after a visit from a Taube, the enemy developed such a fierce attack upon Gontrode and Quatrecht that at the end of the day we had to repeat the manœuvre of the preceding day and fall back upon the railway bank. Here at least the German offensive spent itself in vain upon the glacis of this natural redoubt, defended with conspicuous gallantry by Commander Varney's three battalions. The rest of the night was quiet; the reliefs came into the trenches normally at dawn, and those who wished were free to go to church. It was a Sunday. "I have been to mass in a very pretty little church," wrote Seaman F., of the Isle of Sein. The day passed very well. In the evening after supper we went to bed. Scarcely had we lain down upon the straw when the order was given to turn out again.

We were to beat a retreat, and it was time. The apparent inactivity of the enemy duringthis day of the 11th of October was explained by his desire to turn our position and surround us with all his forces in the loop of the Scheldt. On both banks of the river, down-stream and to the south, long grey lines were writhing. It was a question whether it would be wise to expose ourselves further, and to give the enemy a pretext for bombarding Ghent, an open town, which we had decided not to defend. Had we not achieved our main object, since our resistance of the previous days had given the Belgian army forty-eight hours' start? Headquarters acknowledged that we had carried out our mission unfalteringly. From the moment when they first came into touch with the enemy the Naval Fusiliers had behaved with the firmness and endurance of tried troops, like "old growlers," as Fusilier R. said. Twice the German infantry had given way to their irresistible charge. This gave good hope for the future.

Our own casualties had been inconsiderable. Ten of our men had been killed, among them Naval Lieutenant Le Douget, who had beenin the trenches, with his company, and who had been mortally wounded by a bullet as he was falling back on the railway embankment; we had 39 wounded and one missing, whereas, according to the officialcommuniqué, the enemy's losses were 200 killed and 50 prisoners.[14]

Melle was not a great battle, but it was a victory, "our first victory," said the men proudly, the first canto of their Iliad. And thetroops which gained this victory were under fire for the first time. They came from the five ports, mainly from Brittany, which provides four-fifths of the combatants for naval warfare. And the majority of them, setting aside a few warrant-officers, were young apprentices taken from the dépôts before they had finished their training, but well stiffened by non-commissioned officers of the active list and the reserve. The officers themselves, with the exception of the commanders of the two regiments (Captains Delage and Varney), who ranked as colonels, and the battalion commanders (Captains Rabot, Marcotte de Sainte-Marie, and De Kerros, 1st Regiment; Jeanniot, Pugliesi-Conti, and Mauros, 2nd Regiment), belonged for the most part to the Naval Reserve. It was, in fact, a singular army, composed almost entirely of recruits and veterans, callow youths and greybeards. There were even some novices of the Society of Jesus, Father de Blic and Father Poisson,[15]serving as sub-lieutenants, anda former Radical deputy, Dr. Plouzané,[16]who acted as surgeon. The percentage of casualties was very high among the older men at the beginning of the campaign, and this has been made a reproach to them. If a great many officers fell, it was not due to bravado, still less to ignorance of the profession of arms, as has been suggested[17]; but leaders must preach by example, and there is only one way of teaching others to die bravely. We must not forget that their men were recruits, without homogeneity, without experience, almost without training. Themoralof troops depends on that of their chiefs. "If you go about speaking to no one, sad and pensive," said Monluc, "even if all your men had the hearts of lions, you would turn them into sheep." This was certainly the opinion of the officers of the brigade, and notably of him who commanded the 2nd Regiment, Captain Varney, "always inthe breach," according to an eye-witness, "going on foot to the first lines and the outposts and even beyond them, as at Melle. Here," adds the narrator, "he was on an armoured car, but ... on the step, entirely without cover, to give confidence to his men." One of the officers of his regiment, Lieutenant Gouin,[18]wounded in the foot in the same encounter, refused to go to the ambulance until the enemy began to retreat; Second-Lieutenant Gautier,[19]commanding a machine-gun section, allowed a German attack to advance to within 60 metres, "to teach the gunners not to squander their ammunition," and when wounded in the head, said: "What does it matter, since every one of my 502 bullets found its billet?"

Moreover, the chief of these gallant fellows, Rear-Admiral Ronarc'h, had proved himself a strategist on other battle-fields; the Minister's choice was due neither to complaisance nor to chance.

AdmiralRonarc'h is a Breton; his guttural, sonorous name is almost a birth-certificate. And physically the man answers exactly to the image evoked by his name and race. His short, sturdy, broad-shouldered figure is crowned by a rugged, resolute head, the planes strongly marked, but refined, and even slightly ironical; he has the true Celtic eyes, slightly veiled, which seem always to be looking at things afar off or within; morally he is, as one of his officers says: "a furze-bush of the cliffs, one of those plants that flourish in rough winds and poor soil, that strike root among the crevices of granite rocks and can never be detached from them: Breton obstinacy in all its strength, but a calm, reflective obstinacy, very sober in its outward manifestations, and concentrating all the resources of a mind very apt in turning the most unpromising elements to account upon its object."[20]It is rather remarkable that all the great leaders in this war are taciturn andthoughtful men; never has the antithesis of deeds and words been more strongly marked. It has been noted elsewhere that Admiral Ronarc'h, though a very distinguished sailor,[21]seems destined to fight mainly as a soldier in war; as a naval lieutenant and adjutant-major to Commander de Marolles, he accompanied the Seymour column sent to the relief of the European Legations when the Boxers besieged them in Pekin. The column, which was too weak, though it was composed of sailors of the four European naval divisions stationed in Chinese waters, was obliged to fall back hurriedly towards the coast. It was almost a defeat, in the course of which the detachments of the Allied divisions lost a great many men and all the artillery they had landed. The French detachment was the only one which brought off its guns. The author of this fine strategic manœuvre was rewarded by promotion to the command of a frigate;he was then 37 years old. At the date of his promotion (March 23, 1902) he was the youngest officer of his rank. At 49, in spite of his grizzled moustache and "imperial," he is the youngest of our admirals. He attained his present rank in June, 1914, and was almost immediately called upon to form the Marine Brigade.

FOOTNOTES:[10]Napoleon's young recruits of 1813, who called themselves after the Empress.[11]As a matter of fact, this triumphal entry, followed by a review of the investing army with massed bands, did not take place till the afternoon of the following Sunday. But the criticism holds good: only a portion of the German forces went in pursuit of the Belgian army after repairing the bridge across the Scheldt; 60,000 men remained in Antwerp.[12]Fusilier Y. M. J.,Correspondence. See also the letter of the sailor P. L. Y., of Audierne; "Then, seeing that they were advancing against us in mass (they were a regiment against our single company), we were obliged to fall back 400 metres, for we could no longer hold them. I saw the master-at-arms fall mortally wounded, and four men wounded when we got back to the railway line. There we stayed for a day and a night to keep the Boches employed, sending volleys into them when they came too near and charging them with the bayonet. It was fine to see them falling on the plain at every volley. We ceased firing on the 10th, about 4 a.m."[13]"This morning we made a fine collection of dead Germans from 50 to 100 metres from our trenches. We have a few prisoners." (Letter from Second-Lieutenant Gautier.)[14]According toLe Tempsof October 18, the German losses were very much greater: "800 Germans killed." The hesitation and want of vigour shown in the attack seem surprising. They are perhaps to be explained by the following passage, written by Second-Lieutenant de Blois: "The Germans had not expected such a resistance, and even less had they thought to find us in front of them. They suspected a trap, and this paralysed their offensive, though our line was so thin that a vigorous onslaught could not have failed to break it. This they did not dare to make; several times they advanced to within a few metres of our trenches and then stopped short. We shot them down at our ease. Yet our positions were far from solid; we were on the railway embankment, and the trenches consisted of a few holes dug between the rails; the bridge had not even been barricaded by the Belgian engineers, and nothing would have been simpler than to have passed under it. When night came, Commander Conti ordered me to see to it. I turned on a little electric pocket light; the bullets at once began to whistle about my ears; the Germans were only about 20 metres from the bridge, but they made no attempt to pass!"[15]The first killed and the second wounded at Dixmude. Both received the Legion of Honour.[16]He also received the Legion of Honour.[17]Cf. Dr. Caradec, "La Brigade des Fusiliers Marins de l'Yser" (Dépêche de Brestfor January 19, 1915).[18]Killed at Dixmude.[19]Killed at Dixmude.[20]Dr. L. G., private correspondence.[21]He won his stars as commander of the Mediterranean Fleet, and has invented a mine-sweeper adopted by the British navy.

[10]Napoleon's young recruits of 1813, who called themselves after the Empress.

[11]As a matter of fact, this triumphal entry, followed by a review of the investing army with massed bands, did not take place till the afternoon of the following Sunday. But the criticism holds good: only a portion of the German forces went in pursuit of the Belgian army after repairing the bridge across the Scheldt; 60,000 men remained in Antwerp.

[12]Fusilier Y. M. J.,Correspondence. See also the letter of the sailor P. L. Y., of Audierne; "Then, seeing that they were advancing against us in mass (they were a regiment against our single company), we were obliged to fall back 400 metres, for we could no longer hold them. I saw the master-at-arms fall mortally wounded, and four men wounded when we got back to the railway line. There we stayed for a day and a night to keep the Boches employed, sending volleys into them when they came too near and charging them with the bayonet. It was fine to see them falling on the plain at every volley. We ceased firing on the 10th, about 4 a.m."

[13]"This morning we made a fine collection of dead Germans from 50 to 100 metres from our trenches. We have a few prisoners." (Letter from Second-Lieutenant Gautier.)

[14]According toLe Tempsof October 18, the German losses were very much greater: "800 Germans killed." The hesitation and want of vigour shown in the attack seem surprising. They are perhaps to be explained by the following passage, written by Second-Lieutenant de Blois: "The Germans had not expected such a resistance, and even less had they thought to find us in front of them. They suspected a trap, and this paralysed their offensive, though our line was so thin that a vigorous onslaught could not have failed to break it. This they did not dare to make; several times they advanced to within a few metres of our trenches and then stopped short. We shot them down at our ease. Yet our positions were far from solid; we were on the railway embankment, and the trenches consisted of a few holes dug between the rails; the bridge had not even been barricaded by the Belgian engineers, and nothing would have been simpler than to have passed under it. When night came, Commander Conti ordered me to see to it. I turned on a little electric pocket light; the bullets at once began to whistle about my ears; the Germans were only about 20 metres from the bridge, but they made no attempt to pass!"

[15]The first killed and the second wounded at Dixmude. Both received the Legion of Honour.

[16]He also received the Legion of Honour.

[17]Cf. Dr. Caradec, "La Brigade des Fusiliers Marins de l'Yser" (Dépêche de Brestfor January 19, 1915).

[18]Killed at Dixmude.

[19]Killed at Dixmude.

[20]Dr. L. G., private correspondence.

[21]He won his stars as commander of the Mediterranean Fleet, and has invented a mine-sweeper adopted by the British navy.

How was the retirement to be carried out?

The operation seemed to be a very delicate one. The enemy was watching us on every side. General Capper's orders were to disengage ourselves by a night march to Aeltre, where the roads to Bruges and Thielt intersect. The retreat began very accurately and methodically, facilitated by the precautionary arrangements the Admiral had made: first, our convoys; then, half an hour later, our troops, which were replaced temporarily in their positions by the English units. "As we passed through Ghent," writes Fusilier B., "we were heartily cheered again, the more so as some of us had taken Prussian helmets, which they showed to the crowd. The enthusiasm was indescribable. The ladies especially welcomed us warmly." Fair Belgium had given us her heart; she did not withdraw it, even when we seemed to beforsaking her. Covered by the English division which followed us after the space of two hours, we passed through Tronchiennes, Luchteren, Meerendré, Hansbeke, and Bellem, a long stretch of eight leagues, by icy moonlight, with halts of ten minutes at each stage. The motor-cars of the brigade rolled along empty, all the officers, even the oldest of them, electing to march with their men. Aeltre was not reached till dawn. The brigade had not been molested in its retreat; we lost nothing on the way, neither a straggler nor a cartridge. And all our dead, piously buried the night before by the chaplain of the 2nd Regiment, the Abbé Le Helloco, with the help of the curé and the Burgomaster, were sleeping in the little churchyard of Melle.

After snatching a hasty meal and resting their legs for a while, the men started for Thielt. "Twenty-five kilometres on top of the forty we had done in the night," says a Fusilier, somewhat hyperbolically. "And they say sailors are not good walkers!"[22]

Toavoid corns, they marched bare-footed, their boots slung over their shoulders. And they had to drag the machine-guns, for which there were no teams. But Aeltre, the kindness of its inhabitants, the good coffee served out, and laced by a generous municipal ration of rum, had revived them. "What good creatures they are!" said a Fusilier. "They receive us as if we were their own children!"

The brigade reached Thielt between fourand five in the afternoon; the English division arrived at six, and we at once went into our temporary quarters; the roads were barricaded, and strong guards were placed at every issue. Fifty thousand Germans were galloping in pursuit of us. If they did not catch us at Thielt, we perhaps owed this to the Burgomaster of one of the places we had passed through, who sent them on a wrong track. His heroic falsehood cost him his life, and secured a good night's rest for our men. For the first time for three days they were able to sleep their fill on the straw of hospitable Belgian farms and make up for the fatigues of their previous vigils. A Taube paid an unwelcome visit in the morning, but was received with a vigorous fusillade, and the "beastly bird" was brought down almost immediately, falling in the English lines, to the great delight of our men. Shortly afterwards we broke up our camp and set out for Thourout, which we reached at 1 p.m. Here the English division had to leave us, to march upon Roulers, and the brigade came underthe command of King Albert, whose outposts we had now reached.

The Belgian army, after its admirable retreat from Antwerp, had merely touched at Bruges, and deciding not to defend Ostend, had fallen back by short marches towards the Yser. All its convoys had not yet arrived. To ensure their safety, it had decided, in spite of its exhausted state, to deploy in an undulating line extending from Menin to the marshes of Ghistelles; the portion of this front assigned to the Fusiliers ran from the wood of Vijnendaele to the railway station of Cortemarck. On the 14th, in a downpour of rain, the brigade marched to the west of Pereboom, and took up a position facing east. It was the best position open to them, though, indeed, it was poor enough, by reason of its excentricity. The enemy, who had finally got on our track, was reported to be advancing in dense masses upon Cortemarck. The 6,000 men of the brigade, however heroic they might prove themselves, could not hope to offer a very long resistance to such overwhelmingforces on a position so difficult to maintain, a position without natural defences, without cover on any side, even towards the west, where the French troops had not yet completed their extension. It was the Admiral's duty to report to the Belgian Headquarters Staff on these tactical defects; the reply was an order to make a stand "at all costs," a term fully applicable to the situation; but this was rescinded, and at midnight on October 15 the retreat was resumed.

It ceased only on the banks of the Yser.

FOOTNOTES:[22]This was one of the first questions General Pau put to the Admiral: "Are your men good walkers?" He foresaw that they might have to execute a very rapid retreat. Our officers felt some anxiety on this score. "When not in danger," says Dr. L. F. in his note-book, "the sailor gets rusty. At the beginning of October all of us, officers and men alike, had received the blue infantry overcoat, which was obligatory. The men shouldered knapsacks (not without grumbling), and we were transformed into troopers, nothing left of naval uniform but our caps.... This part of the foot-soldier assigned to them seems an inferior one to our men, and they accept it unwillingly, especially when it entails military marches with great-coats and haversacks. We had innumerable limpers and laggards on our marches in the environs of Paris. The contrast was very striking to those who saw our men afterwards in Belgium. It was a proof of the marvellous resilience of our race, and more particularly of our Bretons, who are always in the majority in the brigade."

[22]This was one of the first questions General Pau put to the Admiral: "Are your men good walkers?" He foresaw that they might have to execute a very rapid retreat. Our officers felt some anxiety on this score. "When not in danger," says Dr. L. F. in his note-book, "the sailor gets rusty. At the beginning of October all of us, officers and men alike, had received the blue infantry overcoat, which was obligatory. The men shouldered knapsacks (not without grumbling), and we were transformed into troopers, nothing left of naval uniform but our caps.... This part of the foot-soldier assigned to them seems an inferior one to our men, and they accept it unwillingly, especially when it entails military marches with great-coats and haversacks. We had innumerable limpers and laggards on our marches in the environs of Paris. The contrast was very striking to those who saw our men afterwards in Belgium. It was a proof of the marvellous resilience of our race, and more particularly of our Bretons, who are always in the majority in the brigade."

Our columns started at 4 a.m., while it was still quite dark, but the roads were good in spite of the rain which had been falling incessantly all night.

The route was through Warken, Zarren, and Eessen, with Dixmude as its final point. The first battalion of the 2nd Regiment and the three Belgian batteries of the Pontus group brought up the rear. The advance was hampered by the usual congestion of the roads, refugees fleeing before the invaders, dragging bundles containing all their worldly goods. These miserable beings seemed to be moving along mechanically, their legs the only part of them that showed any vitality. They halted by the roadside, making way for us, staring at us dully, as if they had left their souls behind them with all the dear familiar things of their past lives. Our men called out to them as they passed: "Keep your hearts up. We'll come back."

Theymade no answer. It was still raining, and the water was streaming off the great-coats. Near Eessen we left Commander de Kerros with the second battalion of the 1st Regiment, to hold the roads of Vladsloo, Clercken, and Roulers; the third battalion of the 2nd Regiment, under Commander Mauros, pushed on in the direction of Woumen, to bar the way to Ypres. We had a fine front, though the Admiral thought it rather too wide for our strength. The four other battalions and the machine-gun company entered Dixmude about noon, and at once took up a position behind the Yser after detaching a strong outpost guard on the north, near the village of Beerst, on the Ostend road, by the side of which runs a little light railway for local transport. The Admiral, who had been anxiously looking out for some undulation in this desperately flat landscape where he could place his artillery, found a suitable spot at last to the south of the Chapel of Notre Dame de Bon Secours, half-way to Eessen. He chose the chapel itselffor his own headquarters. All these arrangements were made immediately, and the men had scarcely got into their quarters, when they were sent out with spades and picks, together with a company of the Belgian Engineers, to put the outskirts of the town into a state of defence. They had to be content with measures of the greatest urgency alone, for the enemy was pressing in upon us and creeping up to Dixmude. A few shrapnel shells had already fallen upon the town, the inhabitants of which began to decamp hastily. However, the railway was still intact, and we were expecting the last trains of material from Antwerp. "At all costs"—this is a phrase that recurs very often in orders from the Staff, and one which the brigade accepted unmurmuringly—the line was to be protected and the enemy held. Two, three, trains passed, and strange ones they were. They continued to run in until night; the fires were covered up; the engine-drivers never whistled; all that was heard was the muffled pant of the engine, like agreat sigh rising from the devastated plains.

LA GRAND' PLACE, DIXMUDE (From a picture by M. Léon Cassel)LA GRAND' PLACE, DIXMUDE(From a picture by M. Léon Cassel)

That same evening our outposts on the Eessen road were attacked by an armoured car and 200 German cyclists; they repulsed the attack; but we were really too much exposed in our position. The Admiral decided that it was imprudent to maintain such a wide front with troops numerically so weak, but which it would take a long time to move off. At Dixmude, on the other hand, where the Yser begins to curve towards the coast, and forms a re-entrant confronting the enemy, there was a position which would permit of a concentric fire from our artillery, particularly favourable to the defensive attitude we were to assume. The considerations which had forced us to extend our front had no longer any weight; all the transports from Antwerp had got in in time. The safety of the Belgian army was assured; its material had reached it, and, with the exception of certain units which had been made prisoners in the evacuation of Antwerp or had been driveninto Holland, and the divisions which continued our line to the North Sea, it was in shelter behind the Yser, in touch with the English corps and the army of General d'Urbal. The brigade might therefore very properly concentrate its defensive round Dixmude.

The Belgian command, which had passed into the hands of General Michel, readily accepted these arguments, and the operation was agreed upon for the next day. "The Boches were there twenty-four hours after us," says a sailor's letter. "We hoped they were eight kilometres from the town. We were all dead tired, but standing firm." The evacuation of these dangerous outposts on flat, open ground, where scattered farms, occasional stacks of straw, and the poplars along the roadside were the only available cover, was carried out with very trifling loss, and we at once organised our defences round Dixmude.

"The Admiral has cast anchor here," wrote a warrant officer of Servel on October 18. "I don't expect we shall weigh it again just yet."

The image was very appropriate. Dixmude,especially when its eastern outskirts were under water, was not unlike a ship anchored fore and aft at the entrance of an inland sea. But this ship had neither armour plates, quarter-netting, nor portholes. The trenches that had been hastily dug round the town could not have been held against a strong infantry attack; the first rush would have carried them. A whole system of defence had to be organised, and all had to be done in a few hours, actually under the enemy's fire. All honour to the Admiral for having attempted it, and for holding on to Dixmude as he would have done to his own ship! No sooner had he recognised the importance of the position than he set to work to increase its defensive value; he was not to be seduced by the feints of the enemy and the temptations offered to beguile him into deploying. Crouching upon the Yser, his head towards the enemy, he only left his lines three times: to support a French cavalry attack upon Thourout, to draw back the enemy, who was concentrating in another direction, and was diverted byfears for Woumen, and finally to co-operate in the recapture of Pervyse and Ramscappelle. But meanwhile, even when he thus detached units and sent them some distance from their base, he kept the whole or a part of his reserves at Dixmude; he clung to his re-entrant—he kept his watch on the Yser.

On October 16, 1914, Dixmude (in Flemish Diksmuiden) numbered about 4,000 inhabitants. TheGuidescall it "a pretty little town," but it was scarcely more than a large village. "It is a kind of Pont-Labbé," wrote one of our sailors, but a Flemish Pont-Labbé, all bricks and tiles, dotted with cafés and nunneries, clean, mystical, sensuous, and charming, especially when the rain ceased for a while, and the old houses, coloured bright green or yellow, smiled at the waters of the canal behind their screen of ancient limes, under a clear sky. From the four points of the horizon long lines of poplars advanced in procession to the fine church of Saint Nicolas, the pride of the place. The graceful fifteenth-century apse was justly praised; but after having admired this, there were further beauties to enjoy in the interior, which contained a good Jouvenet, Jordaens'Adoration of the Magi,a well-proportioned font, and one of the most magnificent rood-screens of West Flanders, the contemporary and rival of those of Folgoët and Saint-Etienne-du-Mont.

THE PAPEGAEI INN (From a picture by M. Léon Cassel)THE PAPEGAEI INN(From a picture by M. Léon Cassel)

This stately church, the exquisite Grand' Place of the Hôtel de Ville, the "Roman" bridge of the canal of Handzaeme, the slender silhouette of the Residencia (the house of the Spanish Governors), and five or six other old-time dwellings, with crow-stepped or flexured gables, like the hostelry ofDen Papegaei(The Parrot), which bore the date of its foundations in huge figures upon its bulging front, hardly sufficed to draw the cosmopolitan tourist tide towards Dixmude. Travellers neglected it; historians ignored it. The capital of an essentially agricultural district, at the confluence of two industries, and astride, so to speak, upon the infinity of beetroot-fields and the infinity of meadows to which the Yser serves as the line of demarcation, Dixmude showed a certain animation only on market-days; then it appeared as the metropolis of the vast flat district, streaked with canalsand more aquatic than terrestrial, where innumerable flocks and herds pastured under the care of classic shepherds in loose grey coats. The salt marsh-mutton of Dixmude and its butter, which was exported even to England, were famous. A peaceful population, somewhat slow and stolid, ruddy of complexion, husky and deliberate of speech, led lives made up of hard work, religious observance, and sturdy drinking bouts in the scattered farms about the town. The Flemish plains do not breed dreamers. When, like those of Dixmude, such plains are amphibious, half land, half water, they do not, as a rule, stimulate the fighting instinct; their inhabitants are absorbed in domestic cares, battling unceasingly for a livelihood with two rival elements.

Such were the only battles that they knew; no invader had ever ventured among them. Invasion, indeed, seemed physically impossible. The whole country between the hills of Cassel, Dixmude, and the line of sand-hills along the coast is but a vastschoore,a huge polder snatched from the sea, and almost entirely below the sea-level, owing to the deposits of mud left high and dry on the shore. Down to the eleventh century it was still a bay into which thedrakkarsof the Norse pirates might venture. If Dixmude, like Penmarc'h and Pont-Labbé, had retained its maritime character, we might have found on the fronts of its riverside houses the rusty iron rings to which barques were once moored. To safeguard the tenure of this uncertain soil, slowly annexed by centuries of effort, conquered, but not subdued, and always ready to revert to its former state, it was not enough to thrust back the sea, which would have overflowed it twice a day at high tide; it was further necessary to drain off the fresh water, which streams down into it from the west and the south, mainly from the stiff clay of the Dutch hills, floods the meadows, cuts through the roads, and invades the villages. The struggle is unintermittent. Such country, threatened on every side, is only habitable by virtue of incessant precautions and watchfulness.The sea is kept under control by Nieuport, with its formidable array of sluices, locks, chambers, water-gates, and cranks; the fresh water, which oozes out on every hand, spangling the rough homespun of the glebe with diamond pools from the beginning of autumn to long after the end of winter, is dealt with by a methodical and untiring system of drainage directed, under State control, by associations of farmers and landowners (gardes wateringues). Hence the innumerable cuttings (watergands) along the hedges, the thousands of drains that chequer the soil, the dykes, several metres high, which overhang the rivers—the Yser, the Yperlee, the Kemmelbeck, the Berteartaart, the Vliet, and twenty other unnamed streams of inoffensive aspect—which, when swelled by the autumn rains, become foaming torrents rushing out upon the ancientschooreof Dixmude. The roads have to be raised very high in this boundless marsh land, the depressed surface of which is broken only by sparse groups of trees and the roofs of low-lying farms. They are few innumber, only just sufficient to ensure communication, and they require constant repair. Torn up by shells and mined by the huge German explosives, the "saucepans" (marmites) and "big niggers" (gros noirs), as the sailors call them, our company of French and Belgian road-menders had to work day and night throughout the operations to keep them open.

Other roads that meander across the plain are negligible. They are mere tracks, most of which are obliterated when the subterranean waters rise in the autumn. For in these regions the water is everywhere: in the air, on the earth, and under the earth, where it appears barely a metre beneath the surface as soon as the crust of soft clay that it raises in blisters is lifted. It rains three days out of four here. Even the north winds, which behead the meagre trees and lay them over in panic-stricken attitudes, bring with them heavy clouds of cold rain gathered in hyborean zones. And when the rain ceases, the mists rise from the ground, whitemists, almost solid, in which men and things take on a ghostly aspect. Sometimes indeed theschoorelights up between two showers, like a tearful face trying to smile, but such good moments are rare. This is the country of moisture, the kingdom of the waters, of fresh water, that bugbear of sailors. And it was here that fate called upon them to fight, to make their tremendous effort. For nearly four weeks, from October 16 to November 10 (the date of the taking of Dixmude), they, with their Admiral, clung desperately to their raft of suffering at the entrance to the delta of marshes, watched over by ancient windmills with shattered wings. One against six, without socks and drawers, under incessant rain, and in mud more cruel than the enemy's shells, they accomplished their task, barring the road to Dunkirk, first ensuring the safety of the Belgian army and then enabling our own Armies of the North to concentrate behind the Yser and dissipate the shock of the enemy's attack. "At the beginning of October," says theBulletin des ArméesofNovember 25, 1914, which sums up the situation very exactly, "the Belgian army quitted Antwerp too much exhausted to take part in any movement.[23]The English were leaving the Aisne for the north; General Castelnau's army had not advanced beyond the south of Arras, and that of General Maudhuy was defending itself from the south of Arras to the south of Lille. Further off we had cavalry, Territorials, and Naval Fusiliers." For the moment at Dixmude, the most exposed point of all, we had only the Fusiliers and a few Belgian detachments, who were putting forth their remaining strength in a supreme effort to co-operate in the defence.

THE BÉGUINAGE AT DIXMUDE (From a picture by M. Léon Cassel)THE BÉGUINAGE AT DIXMUDE(From a picture by M. Léon Cassel)

The Admiral had said to them: "The task given to you is a solemn and a dangerous one. All your courage is needed. Sacrifice yourselves to save our left wing until reinforcements can comeup. Try to hold out for at leastfour days."[24]

At the end of a fortnight the reinforcements had not yet arrived, and the Fusiliers were still "holding out." These men had no illusions as to the fate awaiting them. They knew they were doomed, but they understood the grandeur of their sacrifice. "The post of honour was given to us sailors," wrote Fusilier P., of Audierne, on November 5; "we were to hold that corner at all costs and to die rather than surrender. And indeed we did stand firm, although we were only a handful of men against a force six times as large as ours, with artillery." They numbered exactly 6,000 sailors and 5,000 Belgians, under the command of Colonel (acting General) Meiser, against three German army corps. Their artillery was very insufficient, at least at the beginning. They had no heavy guns and no air-planes,[25]nothing to give them information butthe reports of the Belgian cyclists and the approximate estimates of the men in the trenches.

"How many of you were there?" asked a Prussian major who had been taken prisoner, speaking the day after the fall of Dixmude. "Forty thousand, at least!"

And when he heard that there had been only 6,000 sailors, he wept with rage, muttering:

"Ah! if we had only known!"

FOOTNOTES:[23]In spite of this, four Belgian divisions held the road from Ypres to Ostend, between Dixmude and Middelkerke, unaided, till October 23, and then the line of the Yser from Dixmude to Nieuport.[24]Pierre Loti,Illustrationfor December 12, 1914.[25]But this was not due to defective organisation. It must be remembered that the brigade was destined for Antwerp, and that unforeseen circumstances had caused it to become a detached corps, operating far from our bases.

[23]In spite of this, four Belgian divisions held the road from Ypres to Ostend, between Dixmude and Middelkerke, unaided, till October 23, and then the line of the Yser from Dixmude to Nieuport.

[24]Pierre Loti,Illustrationfor December 12, 1914.

[25]But this was not due to defective organisation. It must be remembered that the brigade was destined for Antwerp, and that unforeseen circumstances had caused it to become a detached corps, operating far from our bases.

Save for an unimportant suburb beyond the Handzaeme Canal, Dixmude lies entirely on the right bank of the Yser. Nevertheless, our general line of defence on October 16, both up and down stream, went beyond the line traced by the course of the river. From Saint-Jacques-Cappelle to the North Sea, by way of Beerst, Keyem, Leke, Saint-Pierre, etc., little rural settlements but yesterday unknown, drowsing in the gentle Flemish calm, the arc of the circle it described followed, almost throughout its course as far as Slype, the roadside light railway from Ypres to Ostend. The Fusiliers flanked this front from Saint-Jacques to the confluence of the Vliet. The 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th Belgian Divisions occupied the rest of the horse-shoe, but the effectives of these reduced divisions had not been made up; some of the regiments had been reduced from 6,000 to 2,000 men; whole companies had melted away. Theremnants continued to stand their ground with fine courage. Until when? They had been asked, like our Fusiliers, to hold out for four days, and it was not until October 23, at the end of nine days, that General Grossetti and his reinforcements arrived.[26]

The Admiral had divided the defence of Dixmude into two sectors, cut by the road of Caeskerke; the north sector was entrusted to the 1st Regiment, under Commander Delage, the south to the 2nd Regiment, under Commander Varney. His Command Post he established atCaeskerke station, at the junction of the lines of Furnes and Nieuport, keeping only a battalion of the 2nd Regiment at his own disposal. Of the two batteries of the Belgian group, one was sent to the south of the second level crossing of the Furnes railway, the other to the north of Caeskerke. A telephone line connected them with the great flour factory of Dixmude, at the head of the High Bridge. A platform of reinforced cement belonging to this factory provided us with an excellent observatory. The thickness of this mass of concrete, as costly as it was incongruous with the importance of the establishment, but very well adapted for heavy guns, which would command the whole valley of the Yser, did not fail to suggest certain reflections. This was perhaps one of the few instances in which ante-bellum preparations had turned against their authors. The machine-gun company was stationed at the intersection of the roads to Pervyse and Oudecappelle; in the trenches of the Yser we had mainly Belgian troops; finally, to the south,debouching from the forest of Houthulst with four divisions of cavalry, General de Mitry threw out a bold advance post towards Clercken, and relieved us a little on that side, although he was unable to control the German offensive, which began in force at 4 p.m.[27]

THE BRIDGE AND FLOUR FACTORY (From a picture by M. Léon Cassel)THE BRIDGE AND FLOUR FACTORY(From a picture by M. Léon Cassel)

The enemy had begun in his customary manner by preparing the ground with his artillery, which from the hollow where it was posted, near Eessen, to the east of Dixmude, rained projectiles upon us from 10 and 15-centimetre guns. Scarcely had the last smoke clouds of the German batteries lifted, when the infantry advanced to the attack. The action was very hot, and was prolonged throughout the night and the morning of the 17th, with violent alternations of advance and retreat. The enemy, anxious to deal a decisive blow,came on in compact masses, in which our machine-guns and rifle fire tore bloody breaches. These mobile bastions wavered for a few seconds, filled up the breaches, and then returned to the charge in the same close formation as before. No network of barbed wire protected the approach to our trenches; most of them had neither roofs nor parapets. In these haphazard defences, successful resistance depended solely on the intrepidity of the men and the skill of the commander. Certain "elements" were taken, retaken, lost, and retaken again. But as a whole our line held; the enemy failed to break through it. At dawn, discouraged, he suspended his attack, but, like a dog who makes off growling, he never ceased shelling us till 11 a.m. "After this," notes Fusilier B., "all noise ceased. Dixmude has not suffered much. The damage caused by the shells is insignificant." True, the enemy had not yet received his heavy artillery.

We profited by the respite granted us to repair the trenches of the outskirts, which weresomewhat damaged, and begin the organisation of the others. This work, indeed, was resumed whenever there was a lull, but it was carried on chiefly at night, and in the morning, from 5 to 9 o'clock, until the mists lifted. At this hour and the coming of light the German batteries generally awoke. We had not enough guns to reply efficaciously to the enemy. The brigade was therefore greatly rejoiced by the reinforcements it received during the day of the 17th: five batteries of the 3rd Regiment of Belgian Artillery (Colonel de Weeschouwer), which, added to the Pontus group, gave the defenders of Dixmude the respectable total of 72 guns. Unhappily their range was not very great, and the metal of which they were made was not strong enough to bear the strain of our .75 shells. Such as they were, however, our front was in much better case when they had been distributed from Caeskerke to Saint-Jacques-Cappelle. The Admiral, who wished to direct their operations himself, had these batteries connected by telephone with his quarters; abattle is directed from a study-table nowadays. Nevertheless, he gave a standing order that the batteries were to open fire instantly, whether by day or night, on the approaches to Dixmude, whenever rifle fire or the sound of machine-guns indicated that an infantry attack threatened our trenches.

The check received on October 16 had perhaps made the enemy more cautious. He had allowed us breathing time in the afternoon of the 17th, and he gave us a quiet day on Sunday, the 18th. Only two or three cavalry patrols were reported near Dixmude, and these were rapidly dispersed by a few salvoes. That day, too, our Fusiliers had a pleasant surprise. A tall, silent officer, with serious eyes, in a closely buttoned black dolman, came to visit the trenches of the Yser with the Admiral. His inspection seemed satisfactory to him. He pressed the Admiral's hand, and when he had regained the river bank, he paused a moment, gazing at the triangle of marshes, allthat remained to him of his kingdom. It was Albert I.[28]

Other news from the front arrived, and gave us confidence. In spite of the fall of Lille, our Armies of the North had taken the offensive with marked success from Roye to the Lys. Orders had come from the English headquarters to the 1st Corps to concentrate at Ypres, whence it was to attempt to advance towards Bruges.[29]This strategic movement had even been initiated, and the French cavalry which had just seized Clercken might be considered the advance guard of Sir Douglas Haig's corps. It asked the Admiral to support it in flank, to enable it to push on to Zarren and Thourout. He at once sent forward Commander de Kerros with a battalion of the 1st Regiment and two Belgian armoured cars towards Eessen.[30]The road was free; it was strewnwith the carcases of dead horses, and even with dead soldiers, as if there had been a precipitate retreat. The enemy seemed to have evaporated. But the church of Eessen, which he had turned into a stable, just as afterwards he turned the church of Vladsloo into a cesspool, with the immemorial Teuton taste for sacrilege, showed evidences of his recent passage. These tracks of the beast did not, however, tell us which way he had gone. Several roads lay open to him. It seemed most probable that, hearing of the movement of the French cavalry, he was retiring upon Bruges by way of Wercken or Vladsloo. Taking his chance, Commander de Kerros had installed himself to await the morning, while two Turco regiments,[31]which had been placed at the Admiral's disposal and ensured hisliaisonwith the main body operating on Thourout, set out as foragers towards Bovekerke and the woods of Couckelaere. Morning dawned, and the execution of the French planseemed about to be realised normally, when a terrible thrust by the enemy at a wholly unexpected point suddenly upset all calculations.

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