Our columns started at 4 a.m., while it was still quite dark, but the
roads were good in spite of the rain which had been falling incessantly
all night.
The route was through Warken, Zarren, and Eessen, with Dixmude as its
final point. The first battalion of the 2nd Regiment and the three
Belgian batteries of the Pontus group brought up the rear. The advance
was hampered by the usual congestion of the roads, refugees fleeing
before the invaders, dragging bundles containing all their worldly
goods. These miserable beings seemed to be moving along mechanically,
their legs the only part of them that showed any vitality. They halted
by the roadside, making way for us, staring at us dully, as if they had
left their souls behind them with all the dear familiar things of their
past lives. Our men called out to them as they passed: "Keep your hearts
up. We'll come back."
They made no answer. It was still raining, and the water was streaming
off the great-coats. Near Eessen we left Commander de Kerros with the
second battalion of the 1st Regiment, to hold the roads of Vladsloo,
Clercken, and Roulers; the third battalion of the 2nd Regiment, under
Commander Mauros, pushed on in the direction of Woumen, to bar the way
to Ypres. We had a fine front, though the Admiral thought it rather too
wide for our strength. The four other battalions and the machine-gun
company entered Dixmude about noon, and at once took up a position
behind the Yser after detaching a strong outpost guard on the north,
near the village of Beerst, on the Ostend road, by the side of which
runs a little light railway for local transport. The Admiral, who had
been anxiously looking out for some undulation in this desperately flat
landscape where he could place his artillery, found a suitable spot at
last to the south of the Chapel of Notre Dame de Bon Secours, half-way
to Eessen. He chose the chapel itself for his own headquarters. All
these arrangements were made immediately, and the men had scarcely got
into their quarters, when they were sent out with spades and picks,
together with a company of the Belgian Engineers, to put the outskirts
of the town into a state of defence. They had to be content with
measures of the greatest urgency alone, for the enemy was pressing in
upon us and creeping up to Dixmude. A few shrapnel shells had already
fallen upon the town, the inhabitants of which began to decamp hastily.
However, the railway was still intact, and we were expecting the last
trains of material from Antwerp. "At all costs"--this is a phrase that
recurs very often in orders from the Staff, and one which the brigade
accepted unmurmuringly--the line was to be protected and the enemy held.
Two, three, trains passed, and strange ones they were. They continued to
run in until night; the fires were covered up; the engine-drivers never
whistled; all that was heard was the muffled pant of the engine, like a
great sigh rising from the devastated plains.
[Illustration: LA GRAND' PLACE, DIXMUDE
(From a picture by M. Leon Cassel)]
That same evening our outposts on the Eessen road were attacked by an
armoured car and 200 German cyclists; they repulsed the attack; but we
were really too much exposed in our position. The Admiral decided that
it was imprudent to maintain such a wide front with troops numerically
so weak, but which it would take a long time to move off. At Dixmude, on
the other hand, where the Yser begins to curve towards the coast, and
forms a re-entrant confronting the enemy, there was a position which
would permit of a concentric fire from our artillery, particularly
favourable to the defensive attitude we were to assume. The
considerations which had forced us to extend our front had no longer any
weight; all the transports from Antwerp had got in in time. The safety
of the Belgian army was assured; its material had reached it, and, with
the exception of certain units which had been made prisoners in the
evacuation of Antwerp or had been driven into Holland, and the
divisions which continued our line to the North Sea, it was in shelter
behind the Yser, in touch with the English corps and the army of General
d'Urbal. The brigade might therefore very properly concentrate its
defensive round Dixmude.
The Belgian command, which had passed into the hands of General Michel,
readily accepted these arguments, and the operation was agreed upon for
the next day. "The Boches were there twenty-four hours after us," says a
sailor's letter. "We hoped they were eight kilometres from the town. We
were all dead tired, but standing firm." The evacuation of these
dangerous outposts on flat, open ground, where scattered farms,
occasional stacks of straw, and the poplars along the roadside were the
only available cover, was carried out with very trifling loss, and we at
once organised our defences round Dixmude.
"The Admiral has cast anchor here," wrote a warrant officer of Servel on
October 18. "I don't expect we shall weigh it again just yet."
The image was very appropriate. Dixmude, especially when its eastern
outskirts were under water, was not unlike a ship anchored fore and aft
at the entrance of an inland sea. But this ship had neither armour
plates, quarter-netting, nor portholes. The trenches that had been
hastily dug round the town could not have been held against a strong
infantry attack; the first rush would have carried them. A whole system
of defence had to be organised, and all had to be done in a few hours,
actually under the enemy's fire. All honour to the Admiral for having
attempted it, and for holding on to Dixmude as he would have done to his
own ship! No sooner had he recognised the importance of the position
than he set to work to increase its defensive value; he was not to be
seduced by the feints of the enemy and the temptations offered to
beguile him into deploying. Crouching upon the Yser, his head towards
the enemy, he only left his lines three times: to support a French
cavalry attack upon Thourout, to draw back the enemy, who was
concentrating in another direction, and was diverted by fears for
Woumen, and finally to co-operate in the recapture of Pervyse and
Ramscappelle. But meanwhile, even when he thus detached units and sent
them some distance from their base, he kept the whole or a part of his
reserves at Dixmude; he clung to his re-entrant--he kept his watch on
the Yser.