FIRE AND FLOOD.
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 country which 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 the right 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, moving
gun 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 the _Humber_, the _Mersey_, and
the _Severn_.
[Illustration: British Monitors shelling German Trenches.
Note the aeroplane and the balloon directing the fire of the monitors'
guns.]
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.
[Illustration]
From the higher ground near Nieuport the Germans advanced in dense
masses, singing patriotic songs. The defenders fell back, and at three
in the afternoon, when the Kaiser saw victory almost within his grasp,
they played their last card. Under cover of British naval guns, the
Belgians at high tide had been hard at work near Nieuport damming the
lower reaches of the canal. The brimming waters of the Yser, swollen by
the recent heavy rains, now almost overtopped its banks. At the critical
moment some of the sluices were opened, and the Belgian guns broke down
the banks at several places. Slowly the water spread over the flat
meadows on the left bank of the canal in great shallow lagoons. The
culverts and bridges beneath the railway embankment had been dammed up
so as to prevent the flood from extending westwards.
Soon the Germans between the embankment and the canal found themselves a
foot deep in water; their guns sank in the mud, and whole battalions
were bogged. Only on a few patches of higher ground could they maintain
a dry foothold. Nevertheless they pushed on through the rising waters,
in the hope of capturing Ramscappelle and seizing the railway embankment
before the waters could stay them. The Emperor himself called for
volunteers, and two Würtemberg brigades, composed of some of the best
fighting men in the German Empire, were chosen to carry the village and
win undying glory.
[Illustration: The Würtembergers' Attack on Ramscappelle.
_By permission of The Sphere._]
On the 30th the great attempt was made. The Würtembergers, carrying
roughly-hewn platforms, floundered through the water, and flung the
"table tops" across the wider channels, thus forming bridges. While so
doing, they were shot down by hundreds, but still they pressed on.
Numbers told; Ramscappelle was partly occupied, and the railway line was
seized. Next day French, Senegalese, and Belgians fell upon them
furiously. The dismounted Bengal Lancers, who had been sent to the help
of the Belgians, now exhausted by fourteen hours' continuous fighting,
charged with their lances and took house after house, smashing in doors
and windows to get at the German marines, who had been called up from
Hamburg to take part in the struggle. In vain did the German officers,
with threats and blows and pistol shots, try to prevent their men from
retreating and surrendering. It is said that some twelve guns and over a
thousand prisoners were taken in this furious counter-attack. Before
long the Allies were over the railway embankment, and the German host
was hurled back into the lagoons. The "seventy-fives" came up at a
gallop, rifles and machine guns cracked incessantly, and soon the waters
were dotted with fallen Germans.
The flood through which the Würtembergers had waded was but the advance
guard of a mighty deluge that was now about to overwhelm the whole
district. Every sluice in this region of stream and canal was opened,
and the brown flood spread over the land like the "bore" in a narrow
estuary. Men and horses were swept from their feet and swallowed up in
the seething waters; others sank to rise no more in the deep mud; field
guns disappeared in the ooze, and all the while the pitiless guns of the
Allies poured shot and shell on the drowning invaders. Thousands fell,
but some escaped, while others struggled to dry ground, only to be taken
prisoners. The attack had hopelessly failed, and the Emperor, who had
been watching the struggle through his field glasses, shut them up and
turned away. Once more he had been foiled at the very moment when
victory seemed to be beckoning him.
On 7th November a frenzied attack was begun on Dixmude, which, as you
know, was held by Ronarc'h's Bretons. From the 16th of October to the
10th of November they were fiercely but unsuccessfully assailed by three
corps of the Duke of Würtemberg's army. "You have to sacrifice
yourselves," said Ronarc'h to his men, "to save our left wing. Try to
hold out four days." They held out for a fortnight.
On the night of the 23rd and in the early morning of the 24th no fewer
than fourteen separate attacks were made upon them, but every one
failed. For most of the time the marines fought in trenches up to their
waists in water, and, as General Joffre told them, they were in their
own element. One night the Germans, driving some captured marines before
them, crept silently towards the French lines. One of the prisoners
shouted a warning, but immediately paid for his loyalty with his life.
The wearied defenders, hearing the shout, sprang to arms and beat off
the attack.
On 10th November the Germans succeeded in capturing the broken walls and
torn streets of what had once been the prosperous village of Dixmude.
This success, however, had come too late. Around Ypres, as we shall
learn in later pages, the flower of the German armies had everywhere
been driven back from the Allied lines. All the doors to the coast were
now locked, bolted, and barred. Nevertheless, fierce but futile
struggles continued on the Yser until early in December, when their fury
abated.
[Footnote 55: German rifleman or sharpshooter.]
[Footnote 56: Meadows reclaimed from the sea.]
[Footnote 57: See p. 36.]
[Footnote 58: See map on p. 93.]
[Footnote 59: _Pair-veez´._]
[Footnote 60: _Rams-ka-pel´._]
[Footnote 61: Fought in 1658. Dunkirk was afterwards handed over to the
English, and remained in their possession until 1662, when Charles II.
sold it to France.]
[Illustration: The Flooded Area in Flanders.
_Photo, Daily Mirror._]