In this chapter I am going to give you a selection of stories which illustrate the fighting from the fall of Antwerp down to the 20th of October 1914. Our first story tells how a British lady in her own yacht carried off many refugees from Ostend while the enemy was actually in the town.
"At nine," says a newspaper correspondent, "we interviewed the official in charge at the burgomaster's office. 'Fly,' he said tersely. 'The Germans will be here, perhaps, in ten minutes.'... I had already arranged a retreat. At ten o'clock we went on board theGrace Darling, a schooner yacht which for the past weeks has been working the British Field Hospital in Belgium. She was chartered and fitted out for the purpose by Miss Jessica Borthwick at her own expense. As will appear, theGrace Darlingwas by three hours the last vessel out of Ostend....
"The Germans were now half a mile away, and we were lying well down in the almost empty harbour. It became necessary to get our auxiliary engine going, and make out at least as far as the harbour mouth. At a quarter-past ten the first Germans appeared—a patrol of Uhlans—trotting across the bridge that leads into the town from the Blankenberghe road.
"At this critical moment the fact emerged that the man who had shipped as a first-class engineer to work our engine for us was not an engineer at all, but an organ-grinder! The organ-grinder's efforts to start the engine were deplorable, and we were so placed we could not get a breath of wind for thesails. The decks of the little yacht were covered with refugees—Belgian fathers, women, and children. They watched with a stricken calm a second and a third Uhlan patrol cross the bridge. Two escaped soldiers in plain clothes who had come on board dropped their uniforms into the water . . .
"Every moment we were expecting the appearance of the Germans on the pier. Soon after midday we sailed at a majestic one mile per hour out of the harbour with the British flag flying. Past the pierhead we found some wind, actually got the engine started, and ploughed away at a cheerful ten knots. A mile out we anchored, to await developments. Through our glasses we saw four Uhlans standing like statues staring out to sea. From over the horizon came racing a torpedo boat, got the news, and promptly poked her nose into the harbour to see for herself. After five minutes she backed out, and went away swiftly. Thereafter Miss Borthwickand several correspondents, including myself, decided on a scouting expedition of our own in the launch. We plunged ahead through the green and lifting waves, raising a fine spray, till we were within a few hundred yards of thedigue.[48]There we saw four Germans running across a little triangle of sandy beach and up on to the pier. We hung on for a moment, anxious as to what would happen next.
"The Germans ran along the pier, the end of which was only two hundred yards from us. When we saw them taking cover among the little buildings at the end of the pier we considered it time to bolt. Promptly the Germans fired a wide shot, and signalled to us to come in, but we made for the open sea. Then they opened fire seriously. We lay as flat as we could—which was not very flat, for we were tightly packed in the tiny boat—and scooted. Two of the Germans were kneeling down with their rifles resting on the rail at the end of the pier, and two standing up.
"It was an extremely uncomfortable four minutes before we were out of range. They fired rapidly, but did not even hit the boat, though they were very close above and beside us. We regained theGrace Darling, raised anchor, and at once made for sea."
Here is a description of one of the French regiments which fought so bravely under Maud'huy against the Bavarians round about Arras:—
"They have come a long way down the straight roads between the hills, and there is dust in their eyes and throats, and they have arrived at that moment in the march when the pack weighs heaviest, when the shoulder-straps begin to rub, when the rifle seems to wear a hole in the shoulder, and when the shoe begins to pinch. The best-hearted man in the regiment knows that it is the time for a little joke. He begins to speak about his captain, who is walking a yard away from him. 'Our captain grows a little fat, I think, my little ones.' 'Yes,' says a comrade, taking up the joke; 'it is possible that he has been eating too much.' 'And he has a great thirst, I am told,' says a third man. 'It is marvellous what a thirst our captain has! Three bottles of red wine are hardly enough to wet his throat.' 'He gets too old for war;' and so thejoke goes on, every word of which is heard by the captain, who finally bursts into laughter, and says, 'You are impudent rascals, all of you.' The bad moment has passed. The weight of the pack is forgotten, and presently the baritone of the regiment sings the first line of a marching song. The chorus goes lilting down the long white road between the poplar sentinels."
Few stories have appeared with reference to the fighting round La Bassée. A dispatch rider says: "There was one brigade there that had a past. It had fought at Mons[49]and Le Cateau,[50]and then plugged away cheerfully through the Retreat and the Advance. What was left of it had fought stiffly on the Aisne. Some hard marching, a train journey, more hard marching, and it was thrown into action at La Bassée. There it fought itself to a standstill. It was attacked and attacked until, shattered, it was driven back one wild night. It was rallied, and, turning on the enemy, held them. More hard fighting, a couple of days' rest, and it staggered into action at Ypres, and somehow—no one knows how—it held its bit of line. A brigade called by the same name, consisting of the same regiments, commanded by the same general, but containing scarce a man of those who had come out in August, marched very proudly away from Ypres, and went—not to rest, but to hold another bit of the line.
"And this brigade was not the Guards' Brigade. There were no picked men in the brigade. It contained just four ordinary regiments of the line—the Norfolks, the Bedfords, the Cheshires, and the Dorsets. What the 15th Brigade did other brigades have done."
You have just heard of the splendid endurance of the Dorsets. Here is another story concerning their doings. It is told by Private Cornelius O'Leary. "We encountered the Germans when they were making one of their fiercest attacks in their efforts to get through to Cálais. There were eight companies of us (1st Dorset Regiment), numbering 120 officers and men apiece, and the fight took place in a very large turnip field. The German artillery was in front of us, and the Maxim fire was on the right and left. It was impossible for us to make trenches, so we had to place our packsin front of us, and do the best we could. We were often outnumbered by ten to one, as the Germans were almost continually being reinforced. But we defeated them with heavy loss."
Armoured motor cars, equipped with machine guns, played an important part during the fighting of October. "In their employment", says "Eye-witness," "our gallant allies the Belgians, who are now fighting with us, and acquitting themselves nobly, have shown themselves to be experts. They appear to regard Uhlan-hunting as a form of sport. The crews display the utmost dash and skill in this form of warfare, often going out several miles ahead of their own advanced troops, and seldom failing to return loaded with spoils in the shape of Lancer caps, busbies, helmets, lances, rifles, and other trophies, which they distribute as souvenirs to crowds in the market places of frontier towns."
No man fought an armoured motor car more gallantly and successfully than Commander Sampson, the famous airman. "He is," says a correspondent, "the will o' the wisp of the British army, and he peppers the Germans according to his fancy, from aeroplane, armoured motor car, or armoured train." On one occasion two machine guns continually annoyed our advanced trenches. Eventually they were discovered; one was in a windmill, the other in a neighbouring cottage. Commander Sampson took out an armoured car with a three-pounder quick-firing gun, and one morning the Germans were surprised to see a low slate-coloured car come rushing out of the British lines, followed by heavy but rather wild rifle fire. The Germans naturally thought that the car was one of their own attempting to escape from the British, so they refrained from firing on it. Just as the car appeared to be about to enter the German lines it pulled up. In fifteen seconds the windmill, with its machine gun and crew, was blown to pieces by the shells from the quick-firer, and before the astonished Germans could collect themselves the gun had swung round, and more shells had crashed into the cottage, which was soon destroyed. Then the car shot back to the British lines, to be received not with rifle fire, but with a loud burst of cheering. It is said that the Kaiser was so exasperated at Commander Sampson's successful daring in this and many other adventures, that he offered a reward of £1,000 to any German soldier who could kill him.
It was during the month of October that we first learnt of the new weapon served out to our flying corps. It consists of an arrow-shaped missile of steel like a pointed lead pencil. A mechanical device spreads these missiles out as they fall from the aeroplane, so that they cover an area of about 200 square yards when dropped from a height of 500 yards. From this height the arrow of death will pass right through a man's body.
"Eye-witness" tells us that "an easy capture was effected by an engineer telegraph linesman. Returning in the dark after repairing some air lines which had been cut by shell fire, he was passing through a wood, when his horse shied at some figures crouching in a ditch. He called out, 'Come out of it!' whereupon to his surprise three German cavalrymen emerged and surrendered. He marched them back to his headquarters."
An action fought near a village less than a mile to the north of Armentières was brought about by a pig. The British and German trenches were so near that the soldiers talked with each other, made jokes, and even learnt the names of their opponents. One day a pig walked on to the strip of land between the trenches. British and Germans alike shot at him, and down he fell. Both sides wanted the pig, for roast pig is a pleasant change from the dull and tasteless round of ordinary rations. But how was he to be got in? To go out to fetch him meant instant death. Five daring soldiers lost their lives over that pig, and still he lay unreclaimed between the trenches.
There was a big fellow in the German trench named Hans Müller. He crept out of his trench in the night, tied a rope to the pig's leg, and crawled back to his trench unhurt. The Germans waited till morning came, so that the British might see their triumph, and then began hauling in the pig. It was a bitter moment for the British, and the Germans did not forget to rejoice loudly in their success. But the British had their revenge: two nights later they took that German trench with the bayonet. That is how they made things even.
The dispatch rider already quoted tells us that spies were very busy in and behind our lines. "I heard a certain story, which I give as an illustration and not as a fact. There was once an artillery brigade billeted in a house two miles or so behind the lines. All the inhabitants of the house had fled, for the village had been heavily bombarded. Only a girl had had the courage to remain, and to act as hostess to the British. She was fresh and charming, clever at cooking, and modest in manner. Now, it was noticed that our guns could not be moved without the Germans knowing their new position. No transports or ammunition limbers were safe from their guns. The girl was told of the trouble; she was angry and sympathetic, and swore that through her the spy would be discovered. She spoke the truth."
One night a man, who had his suspicions, saw the girl go into a cellar as if to bring up coal. He followed her, and, groping about in the dark, touched a wire. Quickly running his hand along it, he came to a telephone. The truth was now out. The Germans were receiving their information from the girl, who posed as the friend of the British. In a few hours she suffered the usual fate of spies.
"Battle noises," says the dispatch rider, "are terrific. At the present moment a howitzer is going strong behind us, and the noise is tremendous. It is like dropping a traction engine on a huge tin tray. A shell passing away from you over your head is like the loud crackling of a newspaper close to your ear. It makes a sort of deep, echoing crackle in the air, gradually lessening, until there is a dull boom, and a mile or so away you see a thick little cloud of white smoke in the air, or a pear-shaped cloud of gray-black smoke on the ground. Coming towards you, a shell makes a cutting, swishing note, gradually getting higher and higher, louder and louder. There is a longer note one instant, and then it ceases. Shrapnel bursting close to you has the worst sound.
"It is almost funny to be in a village that is being shelled. Things simply disappear. You are standing in an archway a little back from the road—a shriek of shrapnel. The windows are broken, and the tiles rush clattering into the street, while little bullets and bits of shell jump from side to side, until their force is spent. Or, a deeper bang, a crash, and a whole house tumbles down."
The last ten days of October 1914 were days of furious but indecisive fighting all along the line from Arras to the sea. "The Germans rocked their attack from side to side, searching for the weak spot. They gained here; they lost there; but the line remained as it had been when Haig moved up his First Corps. The British held on, and continued to dig in. These were days of incessant battering and continual losses; the hospital trains running back to the base carried as many as 4,000 wounded in one day."
The Germans, as you know, were bent on winning the Channel ports at all costs. They thought that the capture of Calais and Boulogne would create a panic in Great Britain, and make us keep our new armies at home for the defence of our shores, instead of sending them abroad for the reinforcement of our Allies. They also thought that if the Channel ports could be captured the British Navy would have to be divided, one portion keeping watch over the German naval bases on the North Sea, the other part operating in the English Channel. In this case the Germans hoped that they might fight and win a naval battle against one part of our divided fleet. There was a good deal of talk in the German papers about mounting huge guns at Calais which would command at least half of the Strait of Dover, and make the dispatch of transports very difficult, if not impossible.
I have already described the three gates through which the Germans tried to pierce the Allied line and make their descent on the shores of the Channel. You know how they were heldup at Arras and at La Bassée. Though they did not cease their efforts to break through these gates during the latter days of October, they began to direct a great attack on the bulge in the Allied line to the east of Ypres. Further, they also attempted to break through by way of the Yser. Military men still wonder why they continued to fling themselves against four points in the Allied line, instead of putting forward all their strength against one of them. We can only be thankful that they wasted their energies in attacking all these points, when they might have battered with all their force at one.
We will now return to the Second British Corps, which, you will remember, had been under fire for twelve days, and had become so exhausted that on 22nd October it was found necessary to withdraw it to a line running generally from the eastern side of Givenchy, east of Neuve Chapelle,[51]to a point about four miles south-east of Estaires. The Lahore Division of the Indian Corps had now arrived, and was about to receive its baptism of fire. The village of Neuve Chapelle, which was destined to figure largely in later history, is four miles north of La Bassée. It was captured by the Germans on the 27th, and its recapture was entrusted to the Indians. The 28th of October will be ever memorable in the annals of the Indian army. On that day it first showed its mettle on a European battlefield.
At Neuve Chapelle our trenches presented a salient[52]which could be swept by fire on both sides, and the Seaforths, who occupied some of them, were much exposed, and suffered heavily. The 47th Sikhs, the 9th Bhopal Infantry, and the 20th and 21st Companies of the 1st Sappers and Miners were now ordered to advance. They dashed forward with great spirit, and though they were under artillery fire for the first time, showed great indifference to the bursting shells. It was noticed that after the first few had exploded near them they hardly troubled to look around.
The fighting was of the most desperate and confused character, and the Germans flung their dead from their trenches to make cover, under which they advanced. No sooner had the British won a hundred yards of trench than they were driven back by a counter-attack. The line swayed to and fro, now in front of the ruins of what had been Neuve Chapelle,now behind them. Trenches were dug in the streets, and sometimes were only a few yards apart. Part of Neuve Chapelle was won, but the whole of it could not be recovered.
Next day there was a terrible fight at Festubert, a village less than two miles to the north-west of La Bassée. Ever since the 18th of October the German guns had been pounding the little place, which was held by the thin line of the 2nd Manchesters. In the early dawn of the 29th the Germans swarmed out of their trenches and swept down in dense masses on the British infantry, who were driven back to their supporting trench. Here they rallied, and thrust back the Germans who followed them. One of the lost trenches was recaptured by two men—Lieutenant James Leach and Sergeant Hogan, who were afterwards awarded the Victoria Cross, as you will hear later.
More Indians now arrived, and the defence of the La Bassée gate was entrusted to them, to two and a half British brigades, and most of the Second Corps artillery. Amongst the Indian infantry were the 8th Gurkha Rifles. You will remember that the Gurkhas are little men. The trenches which they took over had been dug for taller white men, and they found that they could not see out of them. The German machine guns enfiladed[53]the Gurkhas, and most of their white officers fell. Little wonder that, so placed and so strange to this new kind of warfare, they were forced back. Wandering in the dark, they managed by good luck to stumble on the trenches of the 1st Seaforths, a regiment to whom they are blood brothers.
For the next two days there was a heavy bombardment all along our position, and especially against the left wing behind Neuve Chapelle. On 2nd November the Germans again pierced the British line in one place, but a desperate charge of the 2nd Gurkhas, the famous regiment which had fought so bravely on the ridge at Delhi,[54]saved the situation.
For the next three weeks the troops in this section were engaged in beating off German attacks, which gradually grew less and less violent as the Germans concentrated their forces farther north for a great assault on Ypres. Our line was forced back till it ran from Givenchy, to which we stubbornly clung, north by Festubert, and onwards towards Estaires. After an unsuccessful attack on Givenchy (7th November) there was a fortnight's lull, during which the contest was little more than an artillery duel.
Every boy and girl has heard of the wonderful valour and daring of the Sikhs and Gurkhas. Many people in this country fully believed that they would prove invincible on European battlefields. Too much was, perhaps, expected of them: they found themselves waging an entirely new kind of warfare in a cold, clammy land, which numbed their limbs and broke down their stamina. It was all so strange and new—the awful roar of the great howitzer shells, the fighting from holes in the ground, the endless stream of shrapnel, the bitter cold, and the absence of those fierce, furious charges in which they delight. At first their nerve was shaken, but they quickly recovered, and it must be remembered that when they broke they dashed forward just as frequently as they retired. Nevertheless, their splendid courage was not in doubt for a moment, and before long the enemy went in terror of them, as the following letter, published in a German newspaper, plainly shows:—
"To-day for the first time we had to fight against the Indians, and Heaven knows those brown rascals are not to be underrated. At first we spoke with contempt of the Indians. To-day we learned to look at them in a different light.... When for three days it had rained shells and the British thought we were beaten to a jelly, they had then in store for us a visit from their brown allies. Heaven only knows what the English had put into those fellows. Anyhow, those who stormed our lines seemed either drunk or possessed with an evil spirit. With fearful shouting, in comparison with which our hurrahs are like the whining of a baby, thousands of those brown forms rushed upon us as suddenly as if they were shot out of a fog, so that at first we were completely taken by surprise. At a hundred metres (109 yards) we opened a destructive fire which mowed down hundreds, but in spite of that the others advanced, springing forward like cats and surmounting obstacles with unexampled agility. In no time they were in our trenches, and truly these brown enemies were not to be despised. With butt-ends, bayonets, swords, and daggers we fought each other; and we had bitter hard work, which, however, was lightened by reinforcements which arrived quickly, before we drove the fellows out of the trenches."
"To-day for the first time we had to fight against the Indians, and Heaven knows those brown rascals are not to be underrated. At first we spoke with contempt of the Indians. To-day we learned to look at them in a different light.... When for three days it had rained shells and the British thought we were beaten to a jelly, they had then in store for us a visit from their brown allies. Heaven only knows what the English had put into those fellows. Anyhow, those who stormed our lines seemed either drunk or possessed with an evil spirit. With fearful shouting, in comparison with which our hurrahs are like the whining of a baby, thousands of those brown forms rushed upon us as suddenly as if they were shot out of a fog, so that at first we were completely taken by surprise. At a hundred metres (109 yards) we opened a destructive fire which mowed down hundreds, but in spite of that the others advanced, springing forward like cats and surmounting obstacles with unexampled agility. In no time they were in our trenches, and truly these brown enemies were not to be despised. With butt-ends, bayonets, swords, and daggers we fought each other; and we had bitter hard work, which, however, was lightened by reinforcements which arrived quickly, before we drove the fellows out of the trenches."
The Indians are famous for "ruses"—that is, for tricks of war. Here is a striking instance of the resource and presence of mind of an Indian soldier. He and a comrade were instructed to creep out of the trench which they were defending, in order to spy out a German position some two hundred yards distant. They crawled along in the dark, and when they were half-way to the German trench a brilliant searchlight was suddenly flashed on them. At once they were revealed. One of the men was quick-witted enough to realize that only by a trick could he save his life. He immediately rose to his feet and advanced, salaaming to the Germans. They were so surprised that they ceased fire, and after some dumb show let him enter the trench. Then began a conversation, which, as you may imagine, was not very fruitful. The Germans were trying to find out the Indian race to which he belonged. When the word Mussulman was mentioned he nodded his head; but when the word British was uttered, he made a gesture of disgust. The Germans naturally concluded that he hated the British, so they gave him some rations and a blanket, and let him spend the night with them. Next morning, by means of dumb show, he made an officer believe that there were twenty-five other Mohammedans in his trench who were eager to join the Germans. Completely deceived, the officer gave him a final cup of coffee, and sent him off to bring in his friends. Needless to say, he did not return. Unhappily, a few weeks later this nimble-witted soldier was killed in action.
You must not suppose that the Indian army consists only of Gurkhas and Sikhs. There are many other Indian races serving as soldiers, and amongst them are the Pathans, fierce hillmen of the North-West Frontier Province. Somewhere south of Ypres British troops who were holding a line of trenches one misty night became aware of some hundreds of lithe gray figures silently gathering in their rear, and gliding forward like ghosts amidst the trees. Shortly afterwards a score of these gray figures detached themselves from the larger body, and stealthily, like Red Indians on the trail, moved up to and beyond the advanced line of the British trenches. Under their breath our soldiers whispered, "The Indians are going out," and as they craned their necks they saw the ghostly figures disappear from view, crawling python-like towards the first German trench.
What happened there no one quite knows. There was no shout or sudden cry, but in a few minutes the British saw one of the score reappear and glide back to his comrades in the rear. Then the hundreds who were waiting behind in the shadow of the trees went forward in dead silence to join the advanced party. For five minutes there was perfect quiet. Then came a few shots, followed by a wild splutter of musketry, intermingled with cries and groans. Three or four light-balls were thrown in the air, and by their means the British saw, some 600 yards to their front, a mass of wild and struggling men. They saw the gleam of steel and the whirling rifle butt as the Pathans smote down the foe.
For ten minutes they hacked and slew amongst the half-awake and wholly bewildered Germans, who had been lying down awaiting the order to attack the British trenches. The score of Pathans who had gone out in advance had silently slain the German pickets, and their main body had thus been enabled to get right amidst the sleeping foe unchallenged. The slaughter was terrible, and only ended when the Germans, thoroughly aroused to their peril, ran for their lives. The threatened attack had been turned into a ghastly defeat.
In these pages I have given you countless instances of German cunning and audacity. The Indians, being in a strange country, incapable of speaking any language but their own, and not able to distinguish between the French and the German soldiers, were thought to be easy prey. Here is a story of a piece of German deception which utterly failed. A figure, standing out clear in the moonlight, and wearing a complete Gurkha uniform, suddenly appeared one night in front of a Gurkha trench, and delivered this message: "The Gurkhas are to move farther up the trench; another Gurkha contingent is advancing in support." Puzzled by this order, the officer in charge replied, "Who are you? Where do you come from?" To which the only answer was: "You are to move up to make room for other Gurkhas."
The English was good, but something (or many small things) excited the officer's suspicion. "Answer, and answer quickly," he said: "if you are a Gurkha, by what boat did you cross?" The question was, in the circumstances, no easy one to answer, and the German (for such he was) turned at once and fled. But he had not gone five yards before he fell riddled by bullets. Had the officer been deceived, the trench would have swarmed with Germans almost before the Gurkhas had made room for them.
An officer in a Gurkha regiment relates the following amusing story: "One night our men rushed a German trench, and one of them captured a big fat German, who surrendered at the sight of cold steel.
"There is a reward for any man who brings in a prisoner, so the Gurkha started back across the open towards the British trenches with his captive. Unfortunately the little man got hit in the leg, so he climbed on the German's back, and made him carry him to our trenches, where he triumphantly handed his prisoner over, and was then carried off to hospital!"
German troops were holding a copse near a village north of the British-French position, and, fearing an attack, were in the habit of protecting themselves every night by a double line of sentinels. The copse considerably hampered the advance of the Allies, and an Indian regiment was brought up as a reinforcement. The officer in charge said that the wood would soon be captured, and without too great a sacrifice of life. A French officer who was present thought that the Indians were too big to enter the wood unnoticed, and declared that they would soon be perceived by the German sentinels. Thereupon the British officer offered to bet the Frenchman a sovereign that all the German sentinels would be removed. The bet was taken.
At eleven o'clock that night, when every one, except the sentries, was slumbering, the copse was suddenly filled with a fearful din, with occasional shots, and a few shouts. Then all was silent again.
Shortly afterwards the Indians returned. Two by two they came in and placed before their officer a prisoner tied up like a sausage, and carefully gagged. This went on until all the thirty German sentinels who had been guarding the entrance to the wood had been brought in and handed over to the officer.
We will now leave that melancholy region in which Britons of the Second Corps, like the ocean cliffs of their native land, have been thrusting back the furious surges of hostile attack for long and weary weeks. Melancholy indeed is the country over which the tide of war has swept. Prosperous villages and comfortable homesteads are now crumbling walls and smoking ruins, with the decaying carcasses of horses, cows, and pigs lying around. To and fro wander those wretched inhabitants who have escaped shot and shell, striving to save something from the wreckage of their homes. "Here, blocking up a narrow side street, is a dead horse still harnessed to a trap, and beside it is stretched the corpse of a Jäger[55]; close by, in an enclosure where a shell has found them, lie some thirty cavalry horses; a little farther on is laid out a row of German dead, for whom graves are being dug by the peasants.
"The work of burial falls to a great extent on the inhabitants, who, with our soldiers, take no little care in marking the last resting-places of their countrymen and their Allies, either by little wooden crosses or else by flowers. Amidst the graves scattered all over the countryside are the rifle pits, trenches, and gun emplacements, which those now resting below the sod helped to defend or to attack. From these the progress of the fighting can be traced."
We now move northwards to the stretch of countrywhich lies between Ypres and the sea. It is a flat, marshy land, where the inhabitants are doomed to an everlasting struggle against the thankless soil and the invading flood. More than once the district has been the bed of an ancient sea. Beet grows on the silt of old bays; seaports have become agricultural villages, and channels along which large ships formerly sailed are green polders.[56]Only a very complete system of drainage saves the country from being water-logged. It is literally seamed with canals and dykes, and crops are only raised by the unremitting labour of men's hands. The towns and villages are small, and a few highroads, consisting of narrow causeways of cobble stone with broad bands of mud on either side, serve their needs. It is a dismal land of frequent rains and white mists, though quaint and pleasing in sunshine, when its white farmsteads, whirling windmills, lofty spires, and everlasting lines of pollards and poplars seem very attractive to the foreign eye.
From Ypres seawards runs a canal which meets the Yser six miles south of the large village of Dixmude.[57]From Dixmude on to the sea, a distance of eleven miles, we find the canalized Yser, the main waterway of the district. Near the left bank of the canal, at a distance of about a mile and a half, runs a single-line railway,[58]which passes the villages of Pervyse[59]and Ramscappelle,[60]and has its terminus at the mouth of the river. No railway crosses the Yser between Dixmude and Nieuport, but the road from Bruges forks and sends one branch across the stream to Nieuport, and the other to Pervyse.
A number of small creeks of brackish water flow through the low, marshy meadows, below the level of the sea, and bring their sluggish tribute to the Yser. Along the edges of the canal are two or three "islands" of higher ground; but nowhere, until we reach the dunes of the seashore, are there any elevations or commanding positions for guns. It is a blind, sodden country, as ill-fitted for the passage of troops and heavy guns as the coast region of Essex.
To the inhabitants of this amphibious district water is a foe in peace and a friend in war. In times of great peril the sluices of the myriad canals can be opened, and the whole flat district from the railway embankment to the Yser and beyond can be flooded, and thus rendered impassable for an army. You can easily understand that the Belgians would not flood the country until every other means of defence had failed; for the land so submerged would be ruined for agriculture, and years of labour would be necessary to restore it to its former condition. The sluices were opened in the days of Marlborough, and again in 1793-94. You are soon to hear how the progress of the Germans was similarly stayed in 1914. The idea of calling in the aid of water as a defence has long been familiar to Belgian soldiers, and a scheme for flooding the country had been prepared before the war broke out.
I have already described how the Allies held the avenues to the Channel ports at Arras and La Bassée. Two other efforts were made by the Germans to break through the line of defence—the one at Ypres, the other between Dixmude and the sea. All these four attacks were going on at the same time, and all were closely connected; but for the sake of clearness they must be described separately. We will now see how the Belgians and the French barred the road to Calais by way of the Yser, and in a later chapter I will describe the great struggle which took place round Ypres.
When the retreating Belgians were driven out of the Forest of Houthulst on 16th October, they retired to the eastern bank of the Yser. All that was now left to them of their native land was but one-tenth of its surface; they were battle-worn and weary; their surviving countrymen were in bondage; their wrongs cried aloud to Heaven, but their spirit was still unsubdued. No longer were they fighting alone. Britons and Bretons, Indians and Canadians, stockmen from the Antipodes, and tribesmen from the Atlas had come to their succour, and with a new heart they prepared to defend the last few miles of territory which they could call their own.
On the morning of the 17th the Belgians were strung out along the east bank of the Yser from Nieuport to Dixmude. In the ditches by the village were 5,000 Belgians and 7,000 of Ronarc'h's Marines. The total force numbered some 40,000, and against them von Beseler was now advancing with 60,000 men, while the Würtembergers were rapidly moving from the south. Early on the 17th two Belgian divisions in the centre were driven across the river, but they managed to regain theright bank in the course of the night. Early on the morning of the 18th von Beseler, with his right resting on the sand dunes, began a fierce attack that was full of danger. Everybody, from general to private, knew that the critical hour had come. If von Beseler could push back the Belgians beyond the railway embankment on the west side of the Yser, he would be in Dunkirk in two days, and in Calais the day after; the last narrow strip of Belgian soil would be lost, the Allied army at Ypres would be surrounded or forced to retire, and all the bloodshed farther south would have been in vain. The prospect was enough to make the stoutest heart quail.
Fiercely the Belgians strove to hold their line in the unequal combat, but they were forced back step by step, and disaster seemed to await them, when suddenly succour came—from the sea! The guns of British warships began to rake the German trenches, and in their roar was the stern warning, "No road this way."
History was repeating itself, as it has so often done during this war. More than two and a half centuries ago, when the French and English beat the Spaniards at the Battle of the Dunes,[61]which was fought on this very coast, Cromwell's fleet shelled the enemy's wing, and greatly helped to bring about the victory.
As soon as the danger showed itself at Nieuport, King Albert begged our Admiralty for naval assistance. It was, of course, impossible to send ordinary warships to operate on this coast, because the sea is shallow, and cumbered with many a sandbank—"a very dangerous flat, and fatal, where the carcasses of many a tall ship lie buried." The Germans knew this well; they had examined the charts, and they had no fear of molestation from the sea. They believed that no warship could come sufficiently near to the coast to get within range of their trenches.
Now it happened that when the war broke out there lay at Barrow three ships of light draught but very strong gun power which had been built for the Brazilian Government. Such ships are known as monitors, after the name of the first of the type, which was built in 1862, during the American Civil War. Really, a monitor is little more than a low, movinggun platform, carrying a little fort, in which one or two heavy weapons are mounted. Each of the three monitors at Barrow displaced 1,200 tons, and carried two 6-inch guns mounted forward in an armoured barbette, two 4.7-inch howitzers aft, and four 3-pounder guns amidships. They were protected by stout armour, and as they drew only four feet seven inches of water, they could move in the shallows where ordinary ships would run aground. These ships were taken over by the British Government at the beginning of the war, and were called theHumber, theMersey, and theSevern.
On the evening of 17th October the three monitors left Dover under the command of Admiral Hood, and arrived off the Flemish coast just as the German attack began. An old cruiser, a battleship, a gunboat, and several destroyers, aided by French warships, also bombarded the coast from outside the shoals. Von Beseler endeavoured to bring his big guns to bear on them, but his artillery was completely outranged, and several of his batteries were destroyed. Every attempt to beat off the monitors failed. The German submarines were ineffective because they could not manoeuvre in shallow water, and their torpedoes, being set to a greater depth than the draught of the monitors, passed harmlessly beneath their hulls.
The guns of the monitors swept the coast for six miles inland, their fire, which proved very accurate and deadly, being directed by naval balloons, aeroplanes, and signals from the shore. The Germans could not retaliate; nor could their troops easily protect themselves in trenches, for if they faced the sea they could be enfiladed from the canal, and if they faced the canal they could be enfiladed from the sea. For ten days the big guns of the monitors blazed across the sandhills. One vessel fired a thousand shells in a single day. Heavy batteries were established by the Germans at Ostend on the 24th, but they were at once bombarded, much to the discomfort of the German officers who had taken up their quarters in the big hotels on the sea front. By the end of the month the shore batteries ceased to fire, but before that time the Germans had been forced to give up their attempt to reach Calais by a march along the shore.
During this land and sea warfare the Belgians and French struggled desperately to hold the line of the river Yser. Over and over again they beat back massed attacks of the enemy. There were frenzied hand-to-hand combats and thousands of men wrestled and died on the bridges, or were drowned in the waters beneath. On Friday, 23rd October, a body of Germans succeeded in crossing the river close to Nieuport, and in forcing their way to the railway line near Ramscappelle. The Belgians, however, drove them back to their old position on the eastern bank, and the carnage was terrible. Next day some five thousand Germans managed to push across the river at the point where the road from Bruges to Pervyse is carried over the stream. On Sunday, the 25th, more Germans crossed, and the line of the Yser seemed to have been won. But as they tried to deploy from their bridgeheads the French and Belgians, entrenched in the miry fields, which are crossed and recrossed by water courses, met them with such stubborn courage that they could make but little headway. Every yard was fiercely contested, and the German loss was terribly heavy. By the 28th the Allies had been beaten back almost to the railway embankment. Then, under the eye of the Emperor himself, the Würtembergers launched a terrific attack.