Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected
without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have
been retained as printed.
Words printed in italics are marked with underlines: _italics_. Words
printed in bold are marked with tildes: ~bold~.
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THE BATTLES IN FLANDERS
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~HOW THE WAR BEGAN~ By W. L. COURTNEY, LL.D., and J. M. KENNEDY
~THE FLEETS AT WAR~ By ARCHIBALD HURD
~THE CAMPAIGN OF SEDAN~ By GEORGE HOOPER
~THE CAMPAIGN ROUND LIEGE~ By J. M. KENNEDY
~IN THE FIRING LINE~ By A. ST. JOHN ADCOCK
~GREAT BATTLES OF THE WORLD~ By STEPHEN CRANE
~BRITISH REGIMENTS AT THE FRONT~
~THE RED CROSS IN WAR~ By Miss MARY FRANCES BILLINGTON
~FORTY YEARS AFTER~ The Story of the Franco-German War By H. C.
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~A SCRAP OF PAPER~ By E. J. DILLON
~HOW THE NATIONS WAGED WAR~ By J. M. KENNEDY
~AIR-CRAFT IN WAR~ By S. ERIC BRUCE
~FAMOUS FIGHTS OF INDIAN NATIVE REGIMENTS~ By REGINALD HODDER
~THE FIGHTING RETREAT TO PARIS~ By ROGER INGPEN
~THE FIRST CAMPAIGN IN RUSSIAN POLAND~ By P. C. STANDEN
~THE BATTLES OF THE RIVERS~ By EDMUND DANE
~FROM HELIGOLAND TO KEELING ISLAND~ By ARCHIBALD HURD
~THE SLAV NATIONS~ By SRGJAN PL. TUCIC
~SUBMARINES, MINES AND TORPEDOES~ By A. S. DOMVILLE-FIFE
~WITH THE R.A.M.C. AT THE FRONT~ By E. C. VIVIAN
~MOTOR TRANSPORTS IN WAR~ By HORACE WYATT
~HACKING THROUGH BELGIUM~ By EDMUND DANE
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~THE GERMAN NAVY~ By ARCHIBALD HURD
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THE BATTLES IN FLANDERS
FROM YPRES TO NEUVE CHAPELLE
BY
EDMUND DANE
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
MCMXV
PREFATORY NOTE
Ever since the middle of November last there has been on the West
front in the present war what many have called and considered a
"deadlock." In the account which follows of that part of the campaign
represented by the battles in Flanders the true character of the
great and brilliant military scheme by means of which, and against
apparently impossible odds, the Allied commanders succeeded in
reducing the main fighting forces of Germany to impotence, and in
defeating the purposes of the invasion, will, I hope, become clear.
The success or failure of that scheme depended upon the issue of the
Battle of Ypres. Not only was that great battle the most prolonged,
furious, and destructive clash of arms yet known, but upon it also,
for reasons which in fact disclose the real history of this struggle,
hung the issue of the War as a whole. No accident merely of a despot's
desires caused the fury and the terror of Ypres. It was the big bid of
Prussian Militarism for supremacy. Equally in the terrible and ghastly
defeat it there sustained Prussian Militarism faced its doom.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE CRISIS OF OCTOBER 9
II. HOW THE CRISIS WAS MET 20
III. THE EVE OF YPRES 34
IV. THE BATTLE OF YPRES--FIRST PHASE 44
V. THE BATTLE OF YPRES--SECOND PHASE 58
VI. THE BATTLE OF YPRES--THE CRISIS 81
VII. THE BATTLE OF YPRES--FINAL PHASE 104
VIII. THE BATTLE ON THE YSER 120
IX. THE WINTER CAMPAIGN 144
X. NEUVE CHAPELLE 169
CHAPTER I
THE CRISIS OF OCTOBER
At the beginning of October there had arisen in the Western campaign a
crisis with which it needed the utmost skill and resource of the
Allied generals to grapple.
Both the nature of this crisis, and the necessity of reticence
concerning it at the time, ought to be made clear if we are to
appreciate either the momentous character of the Battle of Ypres, or
the profound effect which that glorious feat of the Allied arms has
had upon the fortunes of this War.
Into France at the beginning of the War the Germans threw their mighty
Expeditionary Force of twenty-eight army corps, disposed into eight
armies acting in co-operation. With the circumstances under which that
line of armies, in part held on the French fortified frontier, was
compelled to turn from Paris to the valley of the Marne and was there
defeated, I have dealt in "The Battle of the Rivers." For the reasons
there set out the original objective, the seizure of Paris, was seen
by the Germans when the army of General von Kluck reached Creil, to
have become impossible until the French fortified frontier was in
their hands. Their armies were directed upon the Marne with that aim.
In the manoeuvre they exposed the vulnerable point of their line,
its right flank, to the powerful onset, which General Joffre, who had
foreseen the situation, at once launched against it.
Defeated on the Marne, the Germans lost the military initiative--the
power to decide upon their movements and to compel the enemy to
conform to them. To the soldier the initiative is the practical
embodiment of military superiority. It is the first great step to
victory. In every war the struggle has been to seize and to hold it.
More than in any war has that been the motive in this. Campaigning
with armies, not only vast in point of numbers, but dependent upon a
huge, varied, and costly machinery of destruction, transport, and
supply, has made victory more than ever hang upon this power to direct
their complex organisation to the desired end.
All that the initiative implies. It can therefore be no matter of
surprise that Germany's long preparations were without exception
designed to seize the initiative at the outset, and to hold it if
possible. In that event the whole force of the German Empire would
with the least wastage and in the shortest possible time be applied to
the accomplishment of its Government's political aims. From the Great
Main Headquarters Staff down to the strategical railways, the depots,
the arsenals, and the military workshops, the German military system
was planned to combine swiftness with complete co-operation, and
provided the German commanders discovered the ability properly to
control and direct the machine, not merely the seizure of the
initiative, but the retention of it seemed assured. In that case,
however long and bitter the conflict, the outcome could never have
been in doubt. Applied, in accordance with the plans of the German
Staff, first on the West, and then on the East, the initiative, seized
at the beginning and held to the end, must have given the armies of
Germany the victory.
The Battle of the Marne was of vital importance in two respects. In
depriving the Germans of the initiative, it snatched from them the
chief advantage of their preparations. From that time their
organisation had to be adapted not to fulfil their own designs but to
meet the designs of their opponents. The difficulties in detail
consequent upon this change need not be exaggerated. They were great.
From the German point of view the whole problem of carrying on the war
was altered, and for the worse.
Again, the defeat on the Marne brought the Germans face to face with a
contingency which most of all they had hoped to avoid. Their plans had
been drawn on the assumption of being able to employ practically their
total active force, first on the West front and then on the East. They
had never calculated on the necessity of having to divide that force,
and to employ one half of it on the West, and the other half of it on
the East _at the same time_.
With the defeat of the Marne, however, that necessity came into view.
It meant, unless by some means the necessity could while time yet
allowed be overcome, elimination of the condition mainly essential to
success in the war--unity of the active force of the Empire.
These two changes, loss of the initiative, and necessity for a
division of forces, were changes which the Germans had, if they could,
at all costs to wipe out, and it is but stating truly and without
exaggeration the problem which during the later weeks of September
confronted the German Staff, to say that it was the problem of
bringing the last man and the last gun then available to bear on the
West for the purpose of regaining the lost power of the offensive. If
such a strength could be brought to bear in time, then the initiative
might be restored, division of force avoided, and the probable course
of the war shifted once more on to its original lines.
It was because considerations such as these lay at the back of it,
that the Germans, quite contrary to their traditions and training,
went to the almost incredible labour of constructing across France
from the Aisne ridge to Lorraine, that phenomenal line of more than
150 miles of deliberate fortifications and entrenchments. The risk
involved in the Marne operations had, we now know, not been
unforeseen. Nor were the consequences of failure, if it proved a grave
failure, miscalculated. Indeed, the very precautions taken to prepare
this line from the Aisne to Lorraine prove that they were not. That
line, and that line alone, offered the probability of restoring the
lost advantages, and of parrying the effects of the disaster.
Enabling the Germans to hold their front and to bar the advance of the
Allies with the minimum of force, that line at the same time was to
have aided them--and this was its chief design--to throw the largest
possible masses westward from their flank, pivoting on Noyon. By that
movement they might cut the main Allied armies off from Paris.
The scheme had the merit at once of boldness and of simplicity. For
success it depended on bringing their fresh masses forward with the
utmost rapidity. To that end the German military machine was worked to
its fullest capacity. Thus began the new and enormous movement of
Landwehr army corps into France.
In part the German scheme was frustrated by the attack carried out by
the British army in the Battle of the Aisne, and in part by the delays
due to the very magnitude of the preparations. Unless attempted on a
great scale a scheme of this character had better not be attempted at
all. Since the success or failure of Germany in the war plainly hung
upon it, the effort _had_ to be on a great scale. Of Germany's corps
of Landwehr, by far the greater number were embodied during these
weeks of September. It may seem to the uninitiated a simple matter to
call up, embody, and make ready for the field a million and a half of
men, or thereabouts. But even with a military mechanism like that of
the German Empire, it is a complicated business. That all this was
done in fact in rather less than three weeks is nothing short of
marvellous.
Because it was done, however, was the reason of the crisis at the
beginning of October.
Within the same later weeks of September General Joffre had been able
to throw against the German flank from Noyon to the Somme the powerful
French army commanded by General Castleneau. He was thus in a position
to forestall the German design. On the other side German army corps
had by extraordinary forced marches arrived from Belgium just in time
to ward off the thrust of this French army against Laon, a thrust
which would have crippled the whole German defence and a thrust which
the battle of the Aisne was fought to assist. The fighting from Noyon
to the Somme was deadly. On the German side losses were not regarded.
The purpose of these troops was, cost what it might, to hold the
ground until the main reinforcements came up. They suffered appalling
losses. Nevertheless, though at a heavy sacrifice of life, the
immediate objective, that of preventing a French advance along the
valley of the Oise, was accomplished. The German resistance was
undoubtedly very brave. To begin with, thanks alike to the superiority
of their artillery, and to the _élan_ of their recent victory, the
French advanced with some rapidity. The Germans were driven out of
Compiègne. Their hastily thrown-up trenches were found filled with
dead, many slain by the terrible concussion of the French high
explosive shells. As the French advanced these trenches were filled
in.
Meanwhile, packed into every available train and by every available
railway, the masses of the new German formations were being rushed
westward. Immediately they detrained they were hurried into the
fighting line. In the face of these increasing numbers the French
advance along the valley of the Oise was held.
From the defensive the Germans passed at once to the counter-offensive.
In great strength they launched an attack from Noyon and towards
Roye. The front swayed. In the end, however, the French line from
the Oise to the Somme remained firm.
It must then have been seen that the German outflanking scheme, thus
anticipated, had become, on the lines first laid down, impracticable.
The result was the great attack on Rheims.
It is clear now that when the attack was decided upon, the Germans
believed the army of General Castleneau to consist not of fresh
troops, but of the reserve of the main French army. Acting upon that
belief they concluded that a vigorous assault upon Rheims ought to be
successful. If successful the assault would accomplish all that the
outflanking scheme promised. In any event it would prevent the French
from massing further forces to the north of the Somme. With the German
reinforcements still coming forward, the outflanking scheme could be
tried again at the point where the French line at that time ended.
The attack upon Rheims failed because the German hypothesis upon which
the attack had been founded was in fact false. The army of General
Castleneau _did_ consist of fresh troops, and _not_ of the reserves of
the main French army.
After the attack upon Rheims came the attempted German turning
movement north of the Somme through Albert. Here, however, the Germans
found themselves unexpectedly confronted by yet two other French
armies under the command of Generals D'Armade and Maudhuy. Their great
plan for re-seizing the initiative consequently still hung fire.
General Joffre had been at work to good purpose. The result was to
extend the fighting front from the Oise to the great northern
coalfield.
All this while the Russian pressure on the East front had been growing
and that prospective but fatal division of German forces was
threatening to become more inevitable.
All this while, too, in order eventually to avoid that division more
German reinforcements were pouring west.
As it stood at the beginning of October the position was thus: at
Antwerp there was the Belgian army; at Ghent, under the command of Sir
Henry Rawlinson there was the 7th British division of infantry, and
the 3rd brigade of cavalry; there were some, though not many, British
troops at Dunkerque; there were a few French troops at Bethune.
Practically, however, between Ghent and the terminus of the French
front west of Lens there were no Allied forces. Here was a gap of
nearly 60 miles. If through that gap the Germans could push their way
in strength, they could
(1) Separate the Belgian army and the British troops in Belgium
from the rest of the Allied armies;
(2) Reach the coast and cut the most direct communications with
England;
(3) Pursue their outflanking scheme by turning the right of the
French line.
For the Germans the necessity for carrying out that scheme had day by
day become more urgent. The opportunity at last seemed to lie to their
hand. They proceeded to seize it.
Now let us turn to the other side. If General Joffre could close this
gap and extend his line directly northwards to the coast, he would
(1) Save a considerable slice of territory and coast from German
occupation;
(2) Keep open the most direct communication with England;
(3) Both defeat the German outflanking scheme, and himself
outflank the enemy;
(4) Impose on the Germans the necessity, arising from such a
position, of constant counter attacks, and so waste their
strength;
(5) Hold them ineffective on the West whatever might happen on the
East;
(6) Compel them to meet Russian pressure on the East out of their
further reserves, and thus ensure at once the division of their
forces, their more rapid exhaustion, and the victory of the Allies
in the war.
Such were broadly the issues which at the beginning of October last
hung in the balance. Every appearance seemed to favour the German
chances. General Joffre was then raising yet another (the tenth)
French army. Even, however, at the utmost speed it could not be
organised and equipped under a further fortnight. The Germans,
however, had on their side begun their movement. Through the wide gap
between Ghent and Bethune they were already pouring a great mass of
cavalry, screening the oncoming of their main masses. They had
launched their final assault upon Antwerp. It looked as if for them
the moment had arrived.