How was the retirement to be carried out?
The operation seemed to be a very delicate one. The enemy was watching
us on every side. General Capper's orders were to disengage ourselves by
a night march to Aeltre, where the roads to Bruges and Thielt intersect.
The retreat began very accurately and methodically, facilitated by the
precautionary arrangements the Admiral had made: first, our convoys;
then, half an hour later, our troops, which were replaced temporarily in
their positions by the English units. "As we passed through Ghent,"
writes Fusilier B., "we were heartily cheered again, the more so as some
of us had taken Prussian helmets, which they showed to the crowd. The
enthusiasm was indescribable. The ladies especially welcomed us warmly."
Fair Belgium had given us her heart; she did not withdraw it, even when
we seemed to be forsaking her. Covered by the English division which
followed us after the space of two hours, we passed through
Tronchiennes, Luchteren, Meerendre, Hansbeke, and Bellem, a long stretch
of eight leagues, by icy moonlight, with halts of ten minutes at each
stage. The motor-cars of the brigade rolled along empty, all the
officers, even the oldest of them, electing to march with their men.
Aeltre was not reached till dawn. The brigade had not been molested in
its retreat; we lost nothing on the way, neither a straggler nor a
cartridge. And all our dead, piously buried the night before by the
chaplain of the 2nd Regiment, the Abbe Le Helloco, with the help of the
cure and the Burgomaster, were sleeping in the little churchyard of
Melle.
After snatching a hasty meal and resting their legs for a while, the men
started for Thielt. "Twenty-five kilometres on top of the forty we had
done in the night," says a Fusilier, somewhat hyperbolically. "And they
say sailors are not good walkers!"[22]
To avoid corns, they marched bare-footed, their boots slung over their
shoulders. And they had to drag the machine-guns, for which there were
no teams. But Aeltre, the kindness of its inhabitants, the good coffee
served out, and laced by a generous municipal ration of rum, had revived
them. "What good creatures they are!" said a Fusilier. "They receive us
as if we were their own children!"
The brigade reached Thielt between four and five in the afternoon; the
English division arrived at six, and we at once went into our temporary
quarters; the roads were barricaded, and strong guards were placed at
every issue. Fifty thousand Germans were galloping in pursuit of us. If
they did not catch us at Thielt, we perhaps owed this to the Burgomaster
of one of the places we had passed through, who sent them on a wrong
track. His heroic falsehood cost him his life, and secured a good
night's rest for our men. For the first time for three days they were
able to sleep their fill on the straw of hospitable Belgian farms and
make up for the fatigues of their previous vigils. A Taube paid an
unwelcome visit in the morning, but was received with a vigorous
fusillade, and the "beastly bird" was brought down almost immediately,
falling in the English lines, to the great delight of our men. Shortly
afterwards we broke up our camp and set out for Thourout, which we
reached at 1 p.m. Here the English division had to leave us, to march
upon Roulers, and the brigade came under the command of King Albert,
whose outposts we had now reached.
The Belgian army, after its admirable retreat from Antwerp, had merely
touched at Bruges, and deciding not to defend Ostend, had fallen back by
short marches towards the Yser. All its convoys had not yet arrived. To
ensure their safety, it had decided, in spite of its exhausted state, to
deploy in an undulating line extending from Menin to the marshes of
Ghistelles; the portion of this front assigned to the Fusiliers ran from
the wood of Vijnendaele to the railway station of Cortemarck. On the
14th, in a downpour of rain, the brigade marched to the west of
Pereboom, and took up a position facing east. It was the best position
open to them, though, indeed, it was poor enough, by reason of its
excentricity. The enemy, who had finally got on our track, was reported
to be advancing in dense masses upon Cortemarck. The 6,000 men of the
brigade, however heroic they might prove themselves, could not hope to
offer a very long resistance to such overwhelming forces on a position
so difficult to maintain, a position without natural defences, without
cover on any side, even towards the west, where the French troops had
not yet completed their extension. It was the Admiral's duty to report
to the Belgian Headquarters Staff on these tactical defects; the reply
was an order to make a stand "at all costs," a term fully applicable to
the situation; but this was rescinded, and at midnight on October 15 the
retreat was resumed.
It ceased only on the banks of the Yser.