THE BATTLE ON THE YSER
As we have seen, the gigantic Battle of Ypres presented four phases.
During the first phase, from October 11 to October 17, the British
Army, pivoting upon Givenchy, drove the Germans from Hazebrouck to
Lille.
During the second phase, from October 18 to October 24, the Germans,
resuming the offensive, hurled the weight of their attack against the
sector of the British front to the west of Lille. The British
positions had meanwhile been extended round Ypres to the south and
east, and the line of the Allies formed as far as the coast.
The third phase was marked by the effort of the enemy, now enormously
reinforced, to break through into Ypres from the south-east, aided by
a turning movement from the south. The fighting during the three days,
October 29 to October 31, formed the crisis of the battle. It has been
stated in the French Army Bulletin summarising the operations from
October 21 to November 15, that the Emperor of Germany, who had at
this time taken up his head-quarters at Courtrai, "announced that he
wanted to be in Ypres by November 1, and every preparation had been
made for the proclamation on that day of the annexation of Belgium."
In the fourth and final phase of the battle the Germans tried to
pierce the Allied line between Ypres and the Lys through Wytscheate
and Messines. That defeated, the great mass assault was made against
Ypres from the east by the Prussian Guard on November 11.
While German infantry attacks continued to be made until November 15,
they were no more than the sullen efforts of a baffled but still
bitter foe. The stress of the fighting lasted from October 11 to
November 11, that is exactly one month. For a second time in this
Western campaign there had been in a great pitched battle, a trial of
strength, and for a second time the forces of Germany had, as on the
Marne, gone down.
It is important to keep these phases of the Battle of Ypres in mind.
They throw light on the battle which was concurrently, from October 17
to October 31, being fought on the Yser.
From its source in the hills west of Ypres to the sea the whole course
of the Yser does not exceed 20 miles. It is a stream, however, of a
quite exceptional character. Running through a tract of country for
the most part below sea level, it is more like two streams flowing in
the same direction, and connected by winding cross channels. On a
smaller scale the like effect may be seen in the channels on stretches
of flat shore at ebb tide. The Yser was of course nothing more
originally than a network of such channels running through the mud
flats, and though all this part of the Lowlands was more than a
thousand years ago finally reclaimed from the sea, the waters
continued to flow along the ancient beds. They have been connected
besides by canals. In the Middle Ages when Ypres was a great centre of
trade, and one of the most populous cities of Europe, these canals
were busy arteries of commerce. The country between Ypres and the
coast, one of the most fertile tracts in the world, was at the
outbreak of this War full of quaint and picturesque memorials of its
former importance. In modern days, and more especially under the wise
and beneficial rule of the present Royal House of Belgium, it was a
picture of peaceful and settled wealth.
On the Yser half-way between Ypres and the sea was the old town of
Dixmude, with a church and a hôtel de ville which were masterpieces of
Gothic architecture. Towards the coast, where the line of sand dunes
has in part covered the ancient dykes, the river takes a sharp bend to
west. A tract about two miles wide and three miles long is thus
enclosed on the east between the river channels on the one side and
the sea on the other. This was occupied by the little sea-side
residential places, Lombartzyde and Westende. Nieuport lay on the west
bank of the river a mile or more inland. The Yser here becomes one
channel, deep enough to be navigated by shipping of moderate draught.
It was crossed at Nieuport by five bridges, Between them lay the
series of locks dividing the tidal part of the Yser from the inland
reaches. The locks were those used to regulate the river overflow at
low tide while keeping out the sea when the tide was at flood.
There are two points of some importance on the west bank of the Yser
between Dixmude and Nieuport--the villages of Pervyse and Ramscappel.
Both are on the main road connecting the two towns. Five miles farther
to the west lies the town of Furnes, already mentioned as the meeting
place of the great road from Ypres with that running along the coast
from Ostend through Nieuport and on to Dunkirk and Calais. The great
roads, and indeed most of the main roads and canals in this part of
Flanders are carried along embankments. Before the war these were
mostly bordered with trees, affording in winter shelter from the cold
winds which sweep over the country from the North Sea, and welcome
shade in summer. It was a land of deep repose, and for nearly 100
years and until the coming of the Goth, nothing save the mellow chime
floating distantly from some tall and noble spire reared in far off
days by pious hands, had broken in upon its dreaming.
General Joffre issued the first orders directed towards his great
scheme of military envelopment on September 11. This promptitude was
essential. When in the first phase of the battle of Ypres the British
drove the Germans back upon Lille, the strategical effect was to tear
in the German front a gap from Lille to beyond Thourout, a distance of
nearly thirty miles. The Germans had to mass their forces at Lille in
order to keep their hold on that place.
Through the gap thus made the French pushed forward four divisions of
cavalry, two divisions of their Territorial troops, and a division of
marines, 6,000 strong. Already, however, on October 15, the Germans
had, north of the gap towards the coast, two army corps, and these
were in the course of the next two or three days reinforced by two
others. The objective of these troops was to seize Nieuport and the
crossing of the Yser.
The Belgian Army reached Nieuport from Antwerp on October 16. That
army was, however, not immediately fit for further service. In these
circumstances the line of the Yser from Nieuport to Dixmude was held
by the French cavalry and marines, while the 1st division of British
infantry was thrown forward to Bixschoote, with the 2nd division in
support. Later along the Yser and round Ypres, where after November 20
they relieved the British, the French forces on this part of the front
were brought up to five army corps. At this date in mid October,
however, all that could be opposed to the German mass aggregating
240,000 men detailed to seize the crossings of the Yser, were these
French cavalry, one division of marines, and two divisions of British
infantry, not 45,000 in all.
The first German thrust against Nieuport was made on October 17, and
it must inevitably have succeeded had it not been that the enemy came
within range of and were enfiladed by the fire of a British flotilla.
This equivalent to a destructive attack in flank wrecked the attempt.
The shells of the warships raked the German lines as far inland as
Dixmude.
The Germans realised that at Nieuport, in face of the guns of the
British ships, they could not succeed. They made ready, in
consequence, to throw their attack against Dixmude. For that purpose
they waited until their whole force could come up. Their first attempt
had been made with two army corps only. The respite enabled the
Belgian army to be refitted. Both sides meanwhile proceeded to dig
themselves in. In this region the water level is not more than two
feet below the surface. No sooner were the trenches cut than the water
oozed in. These conditions were aggravated by days and nights of heavy
and almost incessant rain. A dense mist overhung the country. The
nights, too, were now becoming bitterly cold. On the side of the
Germans the numbers were large enough to afford reliefs. They were not
large enough on the side of the Allies. The Belgians passed days and
nights in the trenches under these conditions without respite. It was
an effort of endurance that has never been paralleled. But for their
unconquerable spirit these heroic men could not have come through such
an ordeal. They were defending, however, the last few square miles of
their country and they were defending that last bit of territory from
foes whose pitiless cruelty they had seen in butchery and outrage.
Behind them they had the memory of a happy freedom. Before them lay
only the prospect of submitting for ever to the odious tyranny which
had laid some of the fairest towns and districts of Belgium in ruins.
In that mudded and warworn army there was a fire no hardship could
subdue.
On October 21 opened the great German drive. It was directed alike and
at once to the seizure of Ramscappel so as to compel the Belgians to
evacuate Nieuport; against Dixmude; and farther south against the
British positions at Bixschoote. The latter point was as far as natural
conditions were concerned the easiest crossing of the three. There is
here only one channel of the Yser with a line of canal on either side
of it. The three attacks were made simultaneously because they brought
into play the vast German superiority in numbers.
The enemy had massed along this front a great weight of guns,
including the heavy pieces used in the attack on Antwerp, and his plan
was to draw west of the Yser an impenetrable curtain of fire while he
constructed pontoon bridges. There were difficulties. First the river
channels were in flood. Secondly they were commanded by the French and
Belgian guns. Thirdly and along their length they were under the cross
fire from the warships. This acute spasm of the battle, lasting
without a moment's respite for three days and two nights, was
therefore in one of its main features a gigantic artillery duel.
Pontoon bridges constructed by the Germans were destroyed by the
French gunners or by the shells from the warships time and again. More
than once the bridges were struck and wrecked when they were crowded
with troops and these miserable men, thrown in a struggling mass into
the water, were drowned by hundreds. Time after time the Germans
endeavoured to bridge the river, or rather the network of rivers
before the effort at length succeeded.
Then from Ramscappel the Belgians were forced to retire. Once across
the river with a considerable force of infantry, cavalry, and guns,
the Germans seized Pervyse, and pushed forward to Furnes with such
speed that the small Belgian reserve force there, surprised by them,
had to quit hastily. A surprise, however, was also in store for the
Germans. A division of French Algerian troops, who had been sent
forward by forced marches to reinforce the Belgian resistance, were
already close at hand. They reached Furnes shortly after the German
advance force had established themselves there. The attack was as
impetuous as it was unexpected. The Turcos cleared the Germans out of
the place at the point of the bayonet. Enemy reinforcements, however,
hurried up. In turn the Germans tried to carry the town by storm. The
struggle went on from street to street and from house to house. Again
and again the Germans were driven out. Again and again they rallied
and renewed the fight. As night came on the French commander called
upon his men for a supreme effort. It was victorious. Broken by this
onslaught, the Germans were not only chased out of Furnes but pursued
to Ramscappel and driven out of that village as well. Behind them
their bridges over the Yser had in the meantime again been destroyed.
Mr. A. Beaumont, special correspondent of the _Daily Telegraph_, who
reached Furnes the following day, has recorded that:
The roads from Ramscappel to Pervyse, and from Pervyse to Dixmude
were lined with the enemy's dead. Many of the fugitives tried to
escape by the fields and canals, and their bodies are still found
in great numbers. As in many other places in the north, quite a
number of these Germans are very young, apparently under eighteen,
or else more than fifty years of age.
King Albert of Belgium desired in person to honour the French
troops who had helped to reconquer the village (Ramscappel), and
an impressive ceremony was held a few days later. The King passed
in review the survivors of the gallant companies of Turcos and
Chasseurs in the little square. They were assembled at eight
o'clock in the morning, and drawn up in a square in the presence
of a French general. The King arrived in a motor-car and alighted
at once. Three buglers, who had gone through it all, sounded the
call, and the commander of the troops moved forward to salute
them. The King likewise raised his hand in a long and silent
salute. Then, accompanied by the General in command he passed down
the lines, after which the troops in turn defiled in his presence.
The buglers did their best, but their shrill notes were not in
accord; yet tears came to the eyes of many spectators of this
scene, and not the least moved among them was the King himself.
The General then rode forward, and in a loud voice said: "The King
desires me to transmit to you his hearty congratulations for your
splendid conduct at Ramscappel; this is an honour of which your
commander is justly proud."
Of the attack on Dixmude an account was sent by a German who took part
in it to _Vorwärts_. He relates:
We lay for four whole days without anything to eat or drink. Day
and night the earth trembled with the reports of the guns. No
sleep was possible. Behind us lay a field of roots. Creeping down
the bank in order not to be seen by the enemy, we managed to get
some of them. We sucked up the night dew on the grass in order to
slake our thirst. After four days we had to give up the position
in order to attack the enemy from another side.
Next day it began to rain, and we stood up to the knees in water,
and replied to the fire of the enemy until the evening came. All
was quiet for a time. But the cannons continued their work. We
watched by turns while the others sat in the water, and, leaning
against the trenches, tried to sleep. A terrible picture faced us.
Dixmude was in flames, and the whole sky was blood-red. The
enemy's shells exploded with such a report that we thought our
ears would burst, and the light was so strong that you could read
a paper by it. Dealing death and destruction, the shower of lead
sped through the night air over our heads. In the morning the sun
rose a fiery red.
It was the death signal for many of us, for Dixmude had to be
stormed. At two o'clock we received an order for the attack. We
left our firing places, and at once came under fire. By short
rushes we approached the strongly held trenches of the enemy. Air
and earth shook with the reports of the guns, for the enemy were
firing from at least twenty batteries. Many of us were torn in
pieces. Amidst it all, the rifles and the machine guns made their
peculiar noise. It was a veritable field of death. Right and left
of me comrades fell. We reached a small ditch and blazed away, and
there a bullet hit my rifle, glanced off, and went through the
head of the man next to me.
At last we came within 200 metrès of the enemy's position. Their
fire grew fiercer, but our rage was the greater. Then the enemy
received reinforcements, and brought up three machine guns, which
they trained on us. The top of my helmet was shot away, and the
bullets pierced my spade.
Next came shells such as we had never seen before. The sand
spurted up as high as a house. One shell made a hole at least two
yards deep in the ground. The black smoke rendered it almost
impossible to see anything. These were the shells of the British
Fleet which had taken part in the battle. In the middle of a field
near us eight horses were suddenly torn into shreds by one. What
was that? It was a bugle signal, "Fix bayonets." In a minute we
rushed forward another 100 yards. Then we took a breathing-space.
What was that? I could neither see nor hear, for I was hurled back
three yards with my head against a tree. For a moment I lost
consciousness, and when I came to I knew that I had not been hit.
I rushed forward to join my comrades. I will not tell you anything
about the bayonet charge, for it was a slaughter. Twice we were
driven back, but at the third attack we won. When you heard about
the victory did you not cry "Hurrah"? But we thought upon the
terrible sacrifices that had been made, for many lay dead. I was
hit in the pursuit of the enemy, but I need not describe what it
looked like in the enemy's trenches. The men lay one over another.
At Bixschoote the Germans succeeded in capturing part of the British
trenches held by the 1st Division. These, however, were wrested from
the enemy in a brilliantly executed counterattack. To the troops for
this service the Brigadier-General in command issued a special order
of congratulation. This document gives a clear summary of the
operation:
The 2nd Infantry Brigade (less 2nd Battalion Sussex Regiment left
at Beesinghe) was allotted the task of reinforcing the 1st
Infantry Brigade, and re-taking the trenches along the
Bixsencote-Langemarck road, which had been occupied by the enemy.
In spite of the stubborn resistance offered by the German troops,
the object of the engagement was accomplished, but not without
many casualties in the Brigade.
By nightfall the trenches previously captured by the Germans had
been re-occupied, about 500 prisoners captured, and fully 1,500
German dead were lying out in front of our trenches.
The Brigadier-General congratulates the 1st L.N. Lancashire
Regiment, Northamptonshire Regiment, and the 2nd King's Royal
Rifle Corps, but desires specially to commend the fine soldierlike
spirit of the 1st L.N. Lancashire Regiment, which, advancing
steadily under heavy shell and rifle fire, aided by its machine
guns, was enabled to form up within a comparatively short distance
of the enemy's trenches.
Fixing bayonets, the battalion then charged, carried the trenches
and occupied them, and to them must be allotted the majority of
the prisoners captured.
The Brigadier-General congratulates himself on having in his
brigade a battalion, which, after marching the whole of the
previous night without rest or food, was able to maintain its
splendid record in the past, by the determination and
self-sacrifice displayed in the action.
The Brigadier-General has received special telegrams of
congratulations from both the General officer Commanding-in-chief
1st Corps, and from the General officer commanding 1st Division,
and he hopes that in the next engagement in which the brigade
takes part the high reputation which the brigade already holds,
may be further added to.
In truth the immediate impetus of the German onset had exhausted
itself in the violent and costly efforts put forth. After an interval
of not more than six hours Dixmude was retaken, and the Belgians,
advancing from Nieuport, took and entrenched themselves in
Lombartzyde. Despite its frightful cost in life, the second attempt to
get across the Yser had tragically failed.
After reorganising the Germans began the third great attempt on
October 9. This was even more determined and more wasteful of life
than the second. Again it was persisted in for three days. The scenes
were a repetition of those of the week before, if anything, they were
still more terrible, for the resistance was as unflinching as the
attack was bitter. On the evidence of men who had taken part in the
battle, Mr. Frederick de Bathe, special correspondent of the
_Daily Telegraph_, wrote:
The Germans tried nineteen times to cross the Yser at one point;
on each occasion they were repulsed by the Belgian and French
troops, which were massed upon the opposite bank.
It is said that the enemy lost whole regiments. A wounded German
officer who was taken prisoner affirms that of his regiment, which
went into action 2,000 strong, only eighty were left unscathed.
While claiming that the Belgian and French had suffered big
losses, he admitted that these were nothing in comparison to those
sustained by the Germans. He added that it was not a battle, it
was butchery! A peasant, who came through the German lines,
reports that the enemy have no time to bury their dead singly, but
are obliged to have them carried away in three-wheeled farm carts
by the country people in loads of twenty to twenty-five, and
removed to the rear of their positions for burial.
The cross-fire from the British Fleet prevented the Germans from
advancing along the coast, obliging them to throw pontoon bridges
over the Yser. The pontoons sank time after time with their human
burden, shattered by the shells of the Allies. It is no
exaggeration to state that the Germans on the Yser alone up to
date have lost 75,000 men killed and wounded, and this does not
include the prisoners, who have been numerous. Over 8,000 of the
enemy's wounded who were being brought to Bruges and Courtrai, via
Thourout, were abandoned on Sunday last, and were obliged to make
the ten-hour journey on foot.
The churches of Thourout and in the neighbourhood, as well as all
the farms which are still standing, are crammed with wounded.
Hundreds of German wounded are streaming in day and night
throughout the region behind the enemy's lines. In certain places
close to the Yser between Nieuport and Dixmude the ground is
literally covered with corpses of men and horses. The shrapnel
from the British Fleet has caused more than three-parts of the
slaughter in this particular direction. The scene is indescribable.
Three times the Germans fought their way over through the cross fire
of the Allied guns, ashore and afloat, and three times they were
thrown back. The enemy's expenditure of ammunition was as prodigal as
his expenditure of men.
Then began a systematic destruction which has had no parallel in
modern war. The Germans set themselves to batter the country into
ruins, they bombarded and wrecked not only Nieuport, Dixmude, and
Ypres, but every village and hamlet within range of their guns. Of
this, after having seen its effect, Mr. E. Ashmead-Bartlett said:
This part of Belgium, perfectly flat, is studded with picturesque
old Flemish homes. Almost every village of any size possesses
buildings of historic or architectural interest. The old church of
Dixmude was one of the finest buildings of its kind in the
countryside, and so also was the Hôtel de Ville. What remains of
these buildings would not be worth the while to cart away as old
bricks.
As a machine of pure destruction the Kaiser's army is unique. I
doubt whether any other army in the history of the world has had
the knack of laying waste a whole country so completely. They wipe
out everything.
These towns and villages play no part in the defence of the Yser.
They are merely shell-traps, where no general would think of
placing his men.
As a revenge on an innocent civil population, who thus lose their
hearths and homes, and are now refugees all over France, Holland,
and England, the plan succeeds admirably. On the other hand, the
defence is materially aided, because the fire is taken off the
troops in the trenches and on the long trains making their way to
the front with food, ammunition, and supplies of all kinds. I do
not believe the line of the Yser could have been held had the
Germans scientifically supported their infantry attacks with this
tremendous volume of shell fire, with which they have laid low
Dixmude, Pervyse, Nieuport, and fifty other smaller towns and
villages.
The crowning act, however, of this "revenge," deliberately indulged in
that the attention of the world might be drawn off the crushing
disasters suffered by German arms, was the ruin of Ypres. That act of
vandalism was not, it is necessary to remember, done during the battle
or for any military purpose. It was begun after the battle, and when
the issue, and with it the future history of Europe, had been for ever
changed. Of what that ruin was there has been drawn by Mr. Luigi
Barzini a picture of enduring reality. He was one of three civilians
who visited Ypres while this bombardment was going on. His description
appeared in the _Daily Telegraph_ of December 2, 1914.
At a turn of the road, the town appeared in the distance--two
mutilated campaniles, a ruin of massive towers, and the ancient
belfry, with its vague bluish carvings. In the dull, declining
day, the trees at the edge of the plain seemed like a dark mist.
They formed, as it were, a sombre border of cloud on the horizon,
and above the network of branches rose the remains of the
bombarded town, pale and sinister, with something unreal and
death-like in their mutilated aspect--phantasms of a massacred
glory.
At short intervals the air was shaken by the bombardment, and,
urged by the wind, two clouds of white smoke fled between the
trees and vanished amidst their branches. Two flashes of livid
light burst on high, and for an instant the top of the towers
disappeared in a cloud. The destructive fury of the German guns
still continued to strike the heart of Ypres. The road had been
converted into a desert.
We had left behind us towns and villages crowded with troops,
immense parks of carts and motor-lorries scattered over the
meadows, extensive encampments at the edges of the road, in which
the innumerable piles of arms seemed like black sheaves crowned
with points, the general quarters of divisions and brigades
denoted by standards. Then, having passed Vlamertynghe, about
three miles from Ypres, we came upon the sinister solitude of a
modern battle.
There was no other voice, no other sound, than the boom of cannon
and the crash of shell. But the flashes of the explosions seemed
to render all the more evident, more profound, and more
significant the terrible silence of the town and the fields. It
was the silence of resignation, fear, and agony. The sound of our
footsteps upon the muddy pavement of the suburb echoed amidst the
little houses--the first houses of Ypres.
Not one building remained intact. The hurricanes of steel had
battered and penetrated them all.
* * * * *
At one side of the street three wounded men were waiting for
succour, having remained where they had fallen a few minutes
before. They were poor inhabitants who had possibly been compelled
by the need of obtaining food to come forth from some cellar. They
did not call for assistance; they did not say a word, they did not
even complain. Pale, stunned, suffering, and mute, they merely
looked. The danger seemed to impose silence; there is an
unconscious desire not to be heard, not to be discovered by the
invisible and monstrous will to massacre which is in the air.
Under the bombardment one had the vague impression of being
searched for by death.
There were three of us, and we walked in Indian file along the
wall towards the famous Grande Place, which only a few days ago
afforded one of the most precious and complete visions of the arts
of the world.
The route was not always easy. We had to avoid the holes which had
been dug by the projectiles, to clamber over heaps of ruins,
extricate ourselves from the labyrinths of innumerable fallen
telephone wires, and every time we heard the voice of a shell we
stopped immediately and irresistibly. We ceased to move with a
strange and involuntary suddenness, like the automatic figures of
the Three Kings in a Flemish clock when the last stroke of the
hour sounds. Then, when an explosion had taken place, our
mechanism was again set in motion, and we proceeded.
A little forest of red crosses arose on the edge of the road in a
glade; they marked a group of fresh graves in which lay
inhabitants who had come out of their places of refuge only to
meet with death. In the tragic silence any noise seemed to be
enormously exaggerated.
* * * * *
Long vistas of ruins were open at every side street--demolished
walls, beams fallen from roofs or stretching across between one
house and another, and broken doors. The stricken houses had
launched their walls against the opposite buildings, and remained
open, empty, unrecognisable.
Having thus traversed the Rue d'Elverdinghe, which seemed as if it
would never end, we entered the famous square, and for an
indefinable time remained there at the corner, nailed as it were
to the ground, stupefied and moved, full of admiration and grief
and reverence, incapable of expressing our feelings, overcome by
the grandeur and the sadness of that which we saw, intimidated by
something that was both prodigious and sacred.
We seemed to be disturbing the solemn mystery of an august end.
The life of seven centuries, which was still palpitating
yesterday, was being extinguished in a solitude of horror in the
pallid twilight of a winter day.
Gigantic and solemn above the mournful crowd of crumbling houses
towered the monumental piles--torn, battered, devastated, but
erect and still proud. Undermined by the blows of the shells,
showing long cracks, breached and broken, the noble stone walls of
the Halles, the Hôtel de Ville, and the Cathedral of St. Martin
remained standing, indescribable in death, still stretching
towards the sky their proud towers without bells and without
pinnacles, hollowed at their bases as though by blows of a
monstrous axe.
* * * * *
We pointed to things with vague gestures, without being able to
find words, and forgetting even to bend our backs when we heard
the lamenting voice of the shells. None of us had ever seen Ypres,
and together with the discouragement, caused by the vision of
irreparable ruin, there was created in us the marvel of a
revelation.
For the love and devotion of innumerable generations there had
kept intact on the earth a wonderful corner of the twelfth
century, and we, arriving in front of this marvel, whilst it was
dissolving, surprised the dream at a moment when it was vanishing
for ever.
All the rest of the world was plunged in the barbarism of the
Middle Ages when the Flemish peace had Ypres for its centre. It
was the wealthy and serious merchants of Ypres who created the
Halles, the market of the world, the capital of business, the
incomparable seat of commerce, the parliament of rulers and of
people. Dante had not then been born, and already the Halles of
Ypres were a century old.
The love of Ypres gave to the Halles and to the old Grande Place a
perennial youth. Ypres adored these eloquent and austere witnesses
to her past, which told the story of her ancient power. She
protected, defended them, never permitted the weight of centuries
to do them any injury. Oppressed by famine and pestilence, the
people of Ypres rebelled, sacked, and burned; but the Halles
remained. The people of Ghent arrived in arms, their Allies the
English arrived; they besieged Ypres, entered and laid waste; but
the Halles remained. The Iconoclasts sacked the town, but the
Halles remained. The Duke of Alba's troops arrived and persecuted
Ypres--then fallen into decay--but the Halles remained. Alexander
Farnese conquered the town and abandoned it to the excesses of his
soldiery; but the Halles remained. Four times in one century the
French took Ypres, but the Halles remained. They remained because
the most brutal troops were conquered by their age and their
potent grace. There was no passion, no ferocity that could resist
such imposing severity and harmony. A respectful circle was
formed, and the torch and the sword were lowered before that
splendour of the past.
But the butcher of ancient glories has come; the blind Teutonic
cataclysm has fallen upon unarmed and tranquil Ypres, and the
portentous life is now extinct. There remains nothing but the
gigantic ruins, isolated walls, the corpses of monuments which
preserve a sublime expression of disdainful power.
* * * * *
The bells have fallen. The last hour they chimed was seven in the
morning of Sunday, November 22.
At a quarter past seven the belfry received its first mortal
wound.
But the first night, according to ancient usage, from the tumult
of the august tower there descended upon Ypres--not yet completely
deserted--the notes of the horn of the night watchman, who hour by
hour sent to the four cardinal points the announcement that all
was well!
All around the gabled houses are abandoned in their last agony.
They are those pointed houses, dwellings of a distant epoch, which
give an ineffable impression of familiar calm and patriarchal
life, buildings with faces inexpressibly benevolent, paternal,
sweet and grave. Through the broken windows our gaze penetrates
into corners which recall certain interiors of Flemish art.
In these interiors, until yesterday, close to the windows, with
their little leaded panes, the placid ladies of Ypres wove in
traditional calm their arabesques of lace. Their agile and sapient
fingers produced white, flowery patterns that were as light as
foam. For Ghent had taken from Ypres the industry of its linens,
England that of its cloths, Paris that of its damasks, but no
country had had the power, the placidity, the patience, and the
taste to imitate its lace. Here the old industry lived, modest and
silent.
The mediæval city slept its great sleep amidst the tumult of the
outside world as if the Kasteelgracht and the Majoorgracht, the
wide canals which encircle it and were its gates, were enchanted
and had isolated it from swift innovations.
* * * * *
In the war between Germany and the Halles of Ypres, in the war between
Germany and the Library of Louvain, between Germany and the cathedral
of Rheims, it is not possible to remain neutral.