NEUVE CHAPELLE
All through the winter campaign the enemy had been incessantly trying
to sap and mine forward, and not only at La Bassee but right across
the valley of the Lys to the hills south of Ypres.
He was anxious to make this gap secure. It was the key of his position
along the line from Noyon to the sea.
The construction of the Allies' entrenchment barrier was but the first
stage of their great plan. At once after that barrier had been made
the second stage was entered upon. The second stage was that of
drawing one by one the enemy's teeth in the shape of the carefully
fortified promontories and ridges, selected by him with an eye to
their defensive possibilities. As in the entrenchment stage this was
gone about methodically. Neither time was lost, ammunition wasted, nor
lives thrown away.
Guns were massed against the position picked out for assault. They
were massed without being seen. The present day gunner does not trust
to the eye. He uses his gun with mathematical precision. This system
the French artillerists had reduced to an exact science. At a given
time these guns opened at the same instant, and on a preconcerted plan
swept the position with a squall of fire. In this tornado everything,
entanglements and obstructions, were cut to pieces; trenches crumbled;
concrete redoubts were split into ruins. Amid the hurricane of lead
nothing could live. Having swept the position the guns drew a curtain
of fire behind it while the infantry advanced to the attack.
More than once it happened that the French infantry charged up to and
captured trenches after this treatment without losing a man. None were
left to oppose them. In fact, however, no assaults were made until the
"lie" of the enemy's trenches and defences was thoroughly known.
The first German "tooth" drawn under this system was their
fortification on the spur at Vermelles, four miles to the south of La
Bassee. That was on December 7. After that fangs were one by one
extracted all round the hostile front.[15]
[15] Other examples are the Spur at Notre Dame de Lorette
near Arras; the ridge north of Beausejour in Champagne; the
Crete de Combres at Les Eparges on the Meuse; the Bois de
Pietre on the Moselle; and Hartmannsweilerkopf in Alsace.
One of these fangs was the German position on the spur at La Bassee.
Along the south side of this spur early in February the Irish Guards
and the Coldstreams turned the enemy out of his defences among the
brick stacks there, and made the position useless to him save for
purposes of defence.
Affairs having reached this stage the plan of assault was decided upon
by Sir John French on February 19. It was to be carried out by the
British First Army, under the command of Gen. Sir Douglas Haig, with
the support of a large force of heavy artillery, a division of cavalry
and some infantry of the general reserve.
The attack was to be directed against Neuve Chapelle. Holding attacks,
that is practically feints, were to be made at the same time by the
Second Army against La Bassee from the south and by the 4th Army Corps
and the Indian Army Corps to the north.
The German position at La Bassee formed a buttress of the line which
they had been striving to draw across the valley of the Lys. Their
line from La Bassee across the flats of the valley as far as the hills
south of Ypres had become a maze of diggings and entanglements, and
was deemed to be impregnable. It was important to break this barrier.
For five months at enormous cost the enemy had fought to build it up
and to maintain it.
The village of Neuve Chapelle lay about half way between the spur of
La Bassee on the south and the Lys on the north. The distance between
the promontory on the one side and the river on the other is some
eight miles. Neuve Chapelle was on the flat. From La Bassee round
behind Neuve Chapelle the "inland coastline" curves, forming a bay
completed near the villages of Fournes and Aubers by another
promontory known as the Haut Pommeau. The distance from La Bassee to
Fournes as the crow flies is five miles. Beyond Fournes again the
"inland coastline" bends round sharply, and describes a much greater
bay in which is situated the city of Lille. Eastward of Neuve Chapelle
on the slope of the higher land is the Bois de Biez, and this with the
hamlet of Pietre it was one of the British objectives to seize.
With these places in British hands the German hold on both Lille and
La Bassee would be rendered precarious.
Now let us look, in its general aspects, at the British tactical plan.
A massed force of guns, including batteries of heavy howitzers, was at
a given time (7.30 a.m. on the morning of March 10) to open on the
German line of trenches, extending across the flat country and
half-a-mile or so to the west and in front of Neuve Chapelle. Behind
these trenches ran the main road from La Bassee to Armentières. For
thirty-five minutes the guns were to keep up their squall of fire. By
that time it was calculated the German trenches would be knocked to
pieces; the entanglements and obstacles cut through; and the defending
troops either killed, wounded, or demoralised. At the end of the
thirty-five minutes the infantry of the First Army were to rush the
position. Meanwhile, the artillery was to alter the range and sweep
with a like squall of fire Neuve Chapelle and the German second line
of defences to the north and south of the village. Then the infantry
were to advance to this second line. In turn the artillery were now to
sweep the area beyond the village, and to throw a curtain of fire
along the slopes of the higher land. While this was being done the
infantry were again to advance from Neuve Chapelle on to the slopes
more particularly towards the Bois de Biez and Pietre, while the guns
further extended their range.
It will be seen that the infantry rushes had to take place between the
artillery squalls. The latter had of necessity to be regulated by a
time table. It was an application on a large scale of the tactics
carried out in Champagne and round Arras, Roye, and at Les Esparges.
Both the massing of the guns and that of the troops intended for this
operation was carried out alike with secrecy and success. The
batteries during several days preceding the battle had taken up their
allotted positions without the Germans becoming aware of it. From the
German lines the guns of course were out of sight. The troops had been
massed in the first instance at points in the rear. From these they
marched during the night before the battle to the British line of
trenches. It is remarkable that the movement of these hosts remained
undetected. Amid the unrelieved darkness of the ruined country they
set out along the shell-pitted roads, regiment after regiment, brigade
following brigade. They moved as silently as possible, as silently as
only British troops can when silence is called for. At ten o'clock on
the evening of March 9 this march began. Through devastated and
deserted villages passed the subdued tramp of these legions, men from
every part of the British Isles, regiments famous for valour on many a
field.
Behind the British lines the corps halted along the roadsides. After
their march they were served with hot coffee. They extended for mile
after mile--Highlanders and Riflemen; Territorials and Indians; a
magnificent army, and in immediate command of it one of the ablest and
most resolute of British generals.
Still, apparently, the Germans suspected nothing. No outward sign of
alertness was to be observed along their line. The soughing of the
bleak night wind of March alone broke the silence. Then one by one the
regiments moved by single files through the communication ways down
into the trenches till these were filled with men. From the enemy's
front there was yet no alarm, though their trenches were at many
points less than 100 yards away.
Towards morning there comes out of the darkness a dull boom. A pause
and then another. After a further pause a third. The guns are
registering the range.
And now the faint light of dawn begins to break and the white wall of
sandbags which marks the German front can be dimly made out, with here
and there dark patches where the bags used are blue. Thousands of eyes
watch it for evidence of movement. There is none.
From a prisoner afterwards taken it was learned that a German captain,
hearing what he thought were unusual sounds, and seeing the British
trenches opposite crowded, telephoned the alarm to the artillery.
According to this story he was told there were no orders to open fire,
and advised to mind his own business.
So at last day broke, and the hands of watches approached 7.30. With
the inevitableness of fate the minutes sped. The signal time was
reached.
The guns--hundreds of guns--spoke at the same instant in an
overpowering crash of intensified thunder. The earth shook as though
smitten. The German line appeared as if swept by an earthquake. It
became a line of ceaseless explosions. Shells crashed upon it from
minute to minute in thousands; the guns went at it at top speed. The
wall of sandbags was tumbled and breached in all directions. Amid the
spurting fires and the acrid smoke the bodies, or fragments of the
bodies of men were hurled into the air. Some of these ghastly
fragments were even blown into the British trenches. Back to the
British trenches also wafted the sickly fumes of lyddite and
cresolite. Shells whistled past only a few feet above the heads of the
British infantry. The storm of shrapnel chopped the enemy's
entanglements to pieces. The high explosives left his trenches
shapeless. His laboriously made fortifications had been literally
blasted out of being.
From behind a ragged wrack in the sky where aeroplanes were sailing,
the sun came out, making still darker the cloud of smoke and dust
hanging like a black pall over the German entrenchments. Where the
sunlight touched them the British trenches flashed into rows of
gleaming bayonets.
For the allotted thirty-five minutes the rain of fire went on. It
paused as it had begun, on the instant. The momentary silence was as
stunning as the uproar. It was the signal. The whistles blew for the
charge.
The British infantry told off for the attack swarmed out of their
trenches. There were five brigades of them: in the first line on the
right to the south of Neuve Chapelle, the Garhwalis of the Meerut
division of the Indian Army Corps; in the centre opposite Neuve
Chapelle, the 25th; on the left to the north of Neuve Chapelle, the
23rd; in the second line the 22nd and the 21st.
The leading regiments of the 25th, the Lincolns and the Berkshires,
cleared the space to the enemy's trenches with a rush. The German
entanglements here had been chopped by the shells into mere litter. To
reach the wreckage of the wall of sandbags was a matter of seconds.
The enemy's trenches proved to be full of dead and dying. Such
survivors as there were, paralysed with fright, surrendered. Then the
two battalions swung one to the right, the other to the left and swept
in both directions along the line. Against the Lincolns a remnant of
the Germans still showed fight. The Lincolns went into them with the
bayonet. Though desperate while it lasted, the struggle was brief. The
men left alive surrendered. Against the Berkshires two German officers
fought a machine gun, and continued to fight it until bayoneted.
In the track of the Lincolns and Berkshires came the Royal Irish
Rifles and the Rifle Brigade. While the Berkshires and Lincolns were
rounding up the prisoners, the Royal Irish and the Rifle Brigade moved
forward towards Neuve Chapelle.
On the right the Garhwalis had equally rushed the German front. There,
too, it had been a hand to hand finish, but soon over.
On the left, however, it was not the same story--not by any means the
same story. The 23rd Brigade was made up of the Scottish Rifles, the
2nd Middlesex, the Devons and the West Yorkshires. Against the part of
the German line they were told off to attack the guns had not done the
work thoroughly. The enemy's mass of entanglements here followed a dip
in the ground; and the shells had mostly missed.
Let it here be said that an accident of this kind is always liable to
happen. It does not of necessity imply remissness on the part of the
gunners, and involve blame. Difficulties like this will crop up in
carrying out the best scheme of tactics. Indeed no great battle has
ever yet been fought in which the unexpected has not been encountered,
and had on the instant to be provided for.
At the same time, in a scheme of attack of this kind it is, apart from
accidents, the underlying assumption on which the whole is reared that
every part of the area under fire shall in the first instance be
equally and fully swept. If that be not done then the infantry have
imposed upon them a task which no men ought to be asked to face, and
which deliberately they would never be asked to face. That was the
position in which the Scottish Rifles and the 2nd Middlesex, two
battalions who are among the flower of the army, found themselves.
Rushing forward, they in a flash saw before them in this hollow the
German entanglements standing almost intact. The work in front of them
was the impossible.
Imagine the tragedy of it. They were swept by the fire of machine
guns, by rifle volleys discharged from second to second, and showers
of shrapnel. To go back would have thrown the whole plan of assault
into confusion. It might mean the loss of the battle.
On the other hand, it was impossible to re-range the British
batteries. The guns were now thundering out their rafale upon Neuve
Chapelle and the German second line. In Neuve Chapelle and along that
line were the enemy's local reserves. These or part of these, if there
were any break in the rain of fire, would charge forward to reinforce
their first line. They were there for the purpose.
Part of the Scottish Rifles got through. The entanglements in front of
them had been wrecked. They reached the section of the German trenches
which was their objective and overpowered the defenders. The other
part was held up by the barbed wire. Then began a frantic struggle to
smash through the webwork with the butts of rifles, to stamp it down,
or to crawl through it. The effort was in vain. The bomb-throwers of
the company dashed round in the track of their comrades who had
already reached and captured the adjacent German trench. Through this
trench they reached that still held and daringly bombed the Germans
out of it. Meanwhile the others, forced to lie down, were sprayed both
by the machine guns and by the enemy's shrapnel. A subaltern and 150
men were all who later answered to the roll-call.
The 2nd Middlesex fared no better. The instant they surged into the
open two machine guns, one at each end of the section of the German
trench they were to take opened upon them. Under this fire they had to
clear a space of more than 120 yards. It was strewn as they raced
forward with their dead and wounded. To them also the startling truth
was revealed that the enemy's entanglements were still almost
undamaged. Like the Scottish they tried to stamp and tear their way
through. The effort was speedily seen to be a waste of life. They lay
down amid the hail of bullets. A second time, and then a third they
tried to break through. A message, however, had been got through to
the guns. Relaid on to the German trench the artillery this time cut
the entanglements through and the position, aided by a bombing party,
was carried.
Such was the attack upon the German first line. But for this disaster
to part of the 23rd Brigade, the casualties in this phase of the
battle would have been comparatively slight.
The 25th and the Garhwalis completed their work before the time
allotted for the fire squall against the village and the enemy's
second line had expired. When this tornado began Neuve Chapelle was,
although damaged, still standing. When the shell storm ceased, it had,
save for the broken walls of the church, totally disappeared. This
fair-sized place, which formerly had had some 3,000 inhabitants, was
now pounded into shapeless ruins. The shells had fallen as elsewhere
upon the cemetery. Tombstones had been blown about in all directions;
graves torn open; coffins ploughed up and scattered in splinters
together with the bones they had enclosed. In the churchyard had been
posted a German detachment intended to defend that approach to the
village by rifle and machine-gun fire from behind the gravestones.
Most of these men lay among their gruesome surroundings dead or
wounded. The whole village and its immediate neighbourhood was wrapped
in smoke and dust.
Into this the moment that the guns had ceased the Rifle Brigade
dashed. The German defence had been smashed. Some of the enemy
continued to snipe from behind bits of wall, broken tombstones, or the
wrecks of carts. Among the ruins of a few outlying houses which had
escaped complete destruction others put up a fight with machine guns
and potted at the British from window spaces. They were speedily
disposed of. The rest, bewildered by the blast, were collected from
the cellars and dug-outs in which they had sought refuge, coming up
with their hands above their heads.[16] From the opposite direction
the village had been stormed by the 3rd Gurkhas of the Indian Brigade.
On the way they had got in with their kukris among a German detachment
who attempted with machine guns to defend a group of houses by the
cross roads at the south end of the place. The two corps, Riflemen and
Gurkhas, old comrades in former fights, and each now equally dirty and
blood-bespattered, cheered each other with enthusiasm.
[16] The correspondent who sent to the London News Agency a
picturesque story of the battle (published in the _Daily
Telegraph_ of April 19, 1915), says: "Many strange incidents
were observed. In one cellar a portly German was found
dancing about in an agony of fear, screaming in a
high-pitched voice in English: 'Mercy! Mercy! I am married'
'Your missus won't thank us for sending you home!' retorted
one of the men who took him prisoner, and his life was
spared. A Rifle Brigade subaltern, falling over a sandbag
into a German trench, came upon two officers, hardly more
than boys, their hands above their heads. Their faces were
ashen grey; they were trembling. One said gravely in good
English: 'Don't shoot! I am from London also!' They, too,
were mercifully used."
The artillery tornado against Neuve Chapelle and its environs had been
timed to last for half an hour. It began at 8.5 a.m.; it ended at 8.35
a.m. At the same instant the infantry advance against this second
German line had swung out with a sledge-hammer energy. Within
twenty-five minutes the village of Neuve Chapelle was in the British
hands.
Thus in the centre this second wave of the onset had been crushingly
successful. It was not immediately successful on the flanks. On the
left flank, since the 23rd Brigade had been held up on the German
first line, the troops of the 25th, who had captured the village, had
to face north in order to enfilade the enemy still holding out against
the 23rd. It was through this pressure as well as through the
redirection of the guns, that these Germans still on that part of the
first line were about eleven o'clock in the morning dislodged.
Meanwhile, through the gap in the enemy's first line which had been
cleared by the 25th Brigade, the Devons, part of the 23rd, had come
on, and attacked on the German second line of defence, an orchard,
triangular in shape and bounded along each face by a road, which the
Germans had fortified. This, one of the strong points of the German
second line, the Devons carried by storm. Later, when the Middlesex
got through, they occupied the position.
Both the village of Neuve Chapelle and its environs over a
considerable area north and south presented a network of German
diggings, and before any further advance could be made it was
essential that the whole of these should be in our hands. It was
supposed that this area had been completely and thoroughly searched by
the shell fire. Unfortunately, as in the instance of the fire directed
against the German first line, that proved not to be the case. Just to
the south of Neuve Chapelle there is a junction of roads. The main
road which runs almost straight as a ruler from La Bassee to Estaires,
meets at this point the main road to Armentières. The two highways
join at a rather acute angle, and in that angle there was a group of
houses. This position the Germans had elaborately strengthened. Among
the British troops it had earned the name of "Port Arthur." Remarkably
enough some 200 yards of the German trenches at this place had been
missed or practically missed by the fire storm. The attack here was
assigned to the 22nd Brigade (British) and the 21st Brigade (Indian).
The corps who faced the almost untouched length of German trench were
the 59th Garhwalis, one of the finest battalions of the Indian Army.
They met with the same experience as the Scottish Rifles, a frightful
fire of machine guns, added to repeated rifle volleys. Some of these
dauntless and wiry warriors managed to tear or wriggle through the
entanglements and went into the Germans with the bayonet. They were
overborne by numbers, but fought to the last man.
While this was going on the Leicesters, the entanglements in front of
them having been cut, had on the right of the Indian troops carried
the opposing German position, though under a cross fire from the enemy
still holding out against the Garhwalis. They wheeled round to left
and bombed the Germans out. Meanwhile the Seaforth Highlanders had
been brought up for an attack upon the enemy from the opposite flank,
and this was supported by a frontal attack from the 3rd (Territorial)
Battalion of the London Regiment. The charge of the "terriers" formed
one of the brilliant episodes of the battle. "Port Arthur" was at last
finished, and the whole mass of German reserves who had for months
inhabited this maze of diggings and fortifications, supposed to be
impregnable, were either killed, wounded, prisoners, or on the run.
So much were the survivors on the run in fact, that the British troops
were able to form up for the third swing in the advance without any
opposition worth speaking about. Indeed, Sir John French states in his
dispatch that the 21st Brigade formed up in the open without a shot
being fired at them.
It was now about 1.30 in the afternoon. The part of the British line
which needed to be strengthened for the further work in hand was the
right wing. The 23rd Brigade needed to be reinforced, and in view of
the more extended front which had to be covered as the advance
proceeded, more troops were necessary. Not only was the front to be
covered wider, but the further work on hand would probably turn out
the stiffest. This work was an advance towards the slopes on the east
and the seizure of decisive positions there.
Concurrently with the British infantry attack on the German second
line the artillery had been searching this ground and the slopes, and
although the Germans had been rushing up reinforcements and these were
beginning to appear in the woods the curtain of fire made it out of
the question for them to move farther forward.
Obviously it was all-important that the British line should be
reformed and reinforced for the further advance before enemy
reinforcements could be massed.
The 4th Army Corps and the Indian Army Corps had therefore been
ordered up in the forenoon. There was a delay in their arrival.
Apparently it arose from bad roads. Whatever the exact cause the delay
meant that recovering from their initial demoralisation, the Germans
had organised several strong points of opposition. One of these points
was a bridge on the little river Les Layes, which runs across the
flats from just outside Neuve Chapelle to Armentières, where it falls
into the Lys. At this bridge the 25th Brigade found themselves held
up. The approaches were a nest of machine guns. The third stage of the
British advance did not begin until 3.30 in the afternoon. Two good
hours had been lost.
Not merely were the 25th Brigade held up, but the Indian troops of the
Reserve, advancing towards the Bois de Biez, found themselves
enfiladed by the fire of this German position. The Gurkhas indeed
reached the wood, and entered it. They were under a cross fire,
however, from front and flank, and in the end had to retreat. In the
direction also of the Pietre road the 21st Brigade met with greatly
superior opposition, and like the 25th could got get forward. This was
the situation at nightfall. The British troops dug themselves in along
this new line.
At daybreak on March 11 the battle was renewed with an attempt by the
Germans to shell the British from their new positions. During the
night the enemy had brought up strong reinforcements and posted them
in the woods and on the plateau. Their positions were energetically
bombarded. Two German regiments in the Bois de Biez suffered heavily.
The enemy launched a counter-attack. Their columns were broken by the
British fire. In pursuit of these beaten forces the British attack was
renewed by the 4th Army Corps and the Indian Corps. The Germans,
however, had also on their side established a new line. It was found
necessary to deal with this as with the others, by a squall of
artillery fire. But meantime the weather had changed. Rain and mist
made accurate observation and reliable ranging out of the question.
That night further German reinforcements arrived. They were Saxons and
Bavarians, mainly from Tourcoing. Before dawn on March 12 the German
artillery opened upon Neuve Chapelle. Then in the dim light of
breaking day two immense grey columns of German infantry were seen
coming out of the woods towards Neuve Chapelle, one on the north-east,
the other on the south-east. What is more they came on in mass
formation. The British trenches, needless to say, had as usual been
made as nearly as possible invisible. In that uncertain light the line
even at quite a short distance away could not be made out. The
Bavarians attacking from the south-east were still in column of route.
An officer rode in their midst on horseback. Finding that they were
close to the British line the charge was sounded. The mass came on in
the closest formation. One minute they had uttered a cheer, the next a
score or more of machine guns opened upon them. As though struck by
lightning, the mass went down as it seemed, together. It changed into
a writhing rampart of dead and wounded. Along it men still unhit,
could be seen digging themselves in for sheer life, and even using
corpses as a shelter.
It was a terrible and ghastly spectacle, the result of a terrible and
ghastly blunder. Hardened as they were, even the British troops were
sickened by it. From out of the heap wounded Germans crawled towards
the British lines. Some of the British went out and helped them in.
The attack from the north-east was also a failure. Whether it was the
fate of the Bavarians or not, the heart went out of it. At the
beginning it was violent, but it utterly petered out.
These crushing repulses were again followed by a renewal of the
British onset. It was directed against the village or rather the group
of houses on the ridge known as the Moulin de Pietre. Through a
sweeping "curtain" of German fire the British infantry stormed the
enemy's trenches with grenade and bayonet. Nothing could stand against
their tenacity. They held on to their new positions until nightfall.
It was found, however, that to keep these positions in face of the
enemy's strength was a game not worth the candle. The line was
therefore withdrawn and consolidated.
This work occupied the night, so that when the morning of March 13
dawned the Germans found the British firmly entrenched east of Neuve
Chapelle. The bombardment which the enemy at once opened from the
Aubers ridge did very little damage. This, the fourth day following
upon three days of hard and continuous fighting, was the most trying
of all. The men were by this time in the last stage of fatigue. The
devotion of the British soldier, however, is not readily fathomed.
Such was the battle of Neuve Chapelle. It cost the lives of nearly
2,500 British heroes, and casualties to nearly 9,000 others, while
1,751 were listed as missing. The losses of the enemy were some
18,000. In his dispatch Sir John French says: "The results attained
were, in my opinion, wide and far-reaching." Not only did the British
attack breach a part of the German front which had been elaborately
fortified, and prove the power to breach it, and at a cost to the
attacking force actually less than the force defending, but it set
back in a decisive manner a scheme which the Germans had for six
months been striving regardless of cost to carry through--the barring
of access to the valley of the Lys. That valley is the military main
road into Belgium, and as already pointed out, it is along it that
there lie the railway junctions vital to the German position between
the coast and the Aisne, and vital consequently to their whole
position on the West. From their point of view, too, this much more
than the crossing of the Yser is the way to the coast. The struggle,
therefore, for mastery of the valley of the Lys represents a most
important phase of the war.
As to the losses in the Battle of Neuve Chapelle it is now clear that
they were due mainly to two things--the parts in the German first and
in the German second line of defences which escaped the effect of the
artillery "rafales"; and the late arrival of the reserve on the first
day. If the artillery sweep in each instance was not perfect, it is at
once just and necessary to point out that the flatness of the country
rendered ranging far from easy, and that in each instance the section
missed was comparatively but a very small bit of the line under fire.
We are now in a position to sum up the military results gained in the
operations briefly told in this story. They were, as will be seen, of
the utmost importance. Had the British troops not been transferred
when they were from the Aisne, the whole course of the Western
campaign, and with it the whole course of the War, must have been
changed. With the vast superiority in numbers which, as events proved,
the Germans were able to put into the field even before the end of
October, a superiority aggregating nearly a million men, they would
have been able, round the incompleted left flank of the Allies, not
only to place themselves between the French and British forces and the
coast, but, it is practically certain, to place themselves between the
Allied armies and Paris. They would have gained an unspeakable
strategical advantage, and possibly also, as a consequence, a
succession of decisive victories.
As it was, by the employment of the British troops to extend the left
wing of the Allied line, this strategical scheme of the enemy was
nipped in its first stages. Not only that, but it enabled the Allied
generals completely to turn the tables. In place of enveloping the
Allied armies as they had proposed, the Germans found themselves
enveloped. To escape from this situation, which they well knew meant
carrying on the War East and West with inevitably divided forces, a
condition which eliminated their main chance of victory, they were
forced to fight the first battle of Ypres. Despite their immensely
greater numerical strength, they lost it through a succession of
tactical blunders. To that has to be added the brilliant resource
shown by Sir John French, and never more brilliantly than in the
crisis of the battle on October 31.
Enabling the Allies to maintain their envelopment, the first battle of
Ypres, both definitely checked the German offensive on the West,
defeated their attempt to re-seize the strategical initiative, pinned
down and by degrees wasted their main forces, and what perhaps is most
important of all, ensured the necessity on their part of a division of
forces between the two fronts. It is absolutely true to say that the
later weeks of October were the chief crisis of the War. Only it may
be when the events of this War fall in the course of time into a more
just perspective shall we appreciate all we owe to the men who fought
through that campaign.
To deal with the later and second battle of Ypres is beyond present
scope. This little book will have served its purpose if, bringing into
light the strictly historic truth of momentous and arresting events
which may determine the destiny of Europe for ages, it has revealed at
the same time the noble courage and the grand endurance of the British
soldier, and has shown the majesty with which, like his fathers, he
can do battle for his country.
_Printed in Great Britain by Wyman & Sons Ltd., London and Reading._