The Battle Book of Ypres

A Reference to Military Operations in the Ypres Salient 1914–1918

Beatrix Brice

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781473821231
• eBook ISBN: 9781473843028
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

Of the many hard-fought battles on the Western Front, Ypres stands out as an example of almost inhuman endeavour. For four long years it was the focal point of desperate fighting. Officially there were four main battles in 1914, 1915, 1917 and 1918; these were more accurately peaks in a continuing struggle, for Ypres symbolised Belgian defiance, and the British continued to expend disproportionate resources on defending it. It never fell, although the Germans came close to its gates, and indeed its loss would have been a severe blow to morale.The Battle Book of Ypres, originally published in 1927 and now presented again as a special Centenary Edition, comprises a chronological account of the fighting in the Ypres Salient during the First World War, followed by a useful and unique alphabetical reference to the events in and around each hamlet, village or wood names familiar to those who fought or followed the course of war all those years ago, names now once again lost in insignificance. The names given to each stage of the struggle by the Battle Nomenclature Committee are listed in the appendix. Also included is an index of formations and units, an annotated bibliography and a new Foreword by military historian Nigel Cave.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

HISTORICAL FOREWORD

BATTLES OF YPRES:

“FIRST YPRES,” 1914

“SECOND YPRES,” 1915

MESSINES, 1917

“THIRD YPRES,” 1917

THE LYS, 1918

ADVANCE IN FLANDERS, 1918

THE STORIED MAP:

BEING THE NARRATIVES ARRANGED IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER OF PLACE-NAMES

APPENDIX I:

LIST OF NAMES GIVEN TO THE BATTLES AROUND YPRES BY THE BATTLE NOMENCLATURE COMMITTEE

APPENDIX II:

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX OF FORMATIONS AND UNITS

THE BATTLE BOOK OF YPRES

PROLOGUE

THE German Army, in the fullness of its chosen hour, had struck and missed the blow. That Army, overwhelming in numbers, prepared and organised through forty years to the last bayonet, bullet, and button, had been staggered by the British at Mons and Le Cateau, turned back by French and British from Paris, defeated in the open battle of the Marne, and now lay across France from Switzerland to the Aisne entrenched in previously prepared positions.

From the Aisne, Allies and Germans raced to the north, each trying to outflank the other, and the fall of Antwerp gave the whip-hand to the Germans. That event also relieved them of the Belgian menace in the west and set another German force, 90,000 strong, free to attack. Britain had sent the 7th Division out to Antwerp, but arriving too late, it fell back with the remnant of the Belgians, and turned at bay near the old capital of Flanders—Ypres. By this time the French had made good the line as far north as La Bassée, but between this point and Ypres lay twenty-five miles open to the enemy, the gateway to Calais and all Channel Ports, and an easy line to Paris.

At this juncture Field-Marshal Sir John French, drawing out his little army from its hard-won position on the Aisne, rushed it northward and threw it into that ominous gap, giving to Britons the task of protecting the Channel Ports from which Germany hoped to threaten England. This movement also had the merit of shortening his lines of communication. The way this army was withdrawn, and replaced by the French in the face of the enemy, was a feat of great strategic skill.

The II Corps arrived first and came into action on nth October. The struggle that then opened was to continue without pause or rest until the middle of November, and that Homeric contest centring in and about the Flemish capital is known as the “First Ypres” or “Battles of Ypres 1914.”

To put it in the plainest language, the vast German Army had concentrated on passing through this twenty-five-mile gap from Ypres to La Bassée, and some troops had already penetrated to the west.

The II and III British Army Corps arrived from the south and, together forming a line from east to west, the right flank resting on La Bassée, wheeled on this pivot, swinging north and east, drove the Germans back and back, and formed a line from south to north barring the dangerous gap. North of them the 7th Division strung out to the utmost, and with some French Territorials kept touch with the Belgians on the coast. The Cavalry Corps linked across the final gap between the III Corps and the 7th Division, and so was the battle fought.

The I Corps arrived at St. Omer when the II Corps, after the two weeks of desperate fighting that had battered the enemy to the east of the chosen line, were greatly exhausted, and Sir John French had to decide whether to reinforce that desperate resistance or to throw the I Corps into the weak place where, in the north, the 7th Division reached out to the Belgians. He decided for the latter course, and the II Corps continued to “do the impossible “while the I Corps went into action at Ypres. The wisdom of this move was shortly proved when it became apparent that the Kaiser had set his heart on the capture of that city. The Lahore Division from India joined the southern part of the line later, when units of the II Corps moved nearer the city.

The whole part played by the II Corps, that had already borne the brunt of battle at Mons and Le Cateau under that great General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, and the one division of the III Corps south of Armentières, cannot be dealt with in this book which treats only of the Ypres Salient. But the repulse of Germany and the forming of our impregnable battle-line depended on the stand of the whole British Expeditionary Force.

___________________________

TO THE VANGUARD

Oh, little mighty Force that stood for England!

That, with your bodies for a living shield,

Guarded her slow awaking, that defied

The sudden challenge of tremendous odds

And fought the rushing legions to a stand—

Then stark in grim endurance held the line.

O little Force that in your agony

Stood fast while England girt her armour on,

Held high our honour in your wounded hands,

Carried our honour safe with bleeding feet—

We have no glory great enough for you,

The very soul of Britain keeps your day!

Procession?—Marches forth a Race in Arms;

And, for the thunder of the crowd’s applause,

Crash upon crash the voice of monstrous guns

Fed by the sweat, served by the life of England,

Shouting your battle-cry across the world.

Oh, little mighty Force, your way is ours,

This land inviolate your monument.

HISTORICAL FOREWORD

“FIRST YPRES,” BATTLES OF YPRES, 1914

THE first Battle of Ypres, lasting for three weeks, was a terrific and prolonged struggle from day to day in which a hundred minor battles were fought. The British Expeditionary Force came to this trial with every disadvantage and difficulty on their side. The Germans outnumbered them enormously, and were fully equipped with every modern weapon and every material of war, crowned by an artillery of tremendous guns. The British had not numbers sufficient to man the line, every form of material was short or entirely unobtainable, from ammunition downward. Trenches were very shallow, and in short lengths separated by wide gaps, that extended in places to a width as great as 400 yards. Throughout the battle the fighting never ceased night or day, and the groups of men holding the inadequate trenches, rushed from place to menaced place—withdrawn to be flung forward in smashing counter-attacks—were men physically at their weakest from exhaustion and want of sleep.

A steadily flowing torrent of men, equipped with overwhelming and enormous artillery, rolled day after day against that thin-drawn line, that skeleton army. On the one hand, successive Army Corps, fresh men; on the other, the shattered remnant of seven Divisions, a single line without support or reinforcements. So thin the line that a break anywhere meant flanks left in the air, and again and again a little body of men was cut off, and left fighting back to back to the finish. Battalions reduced in a day or two to companies—100 men and a couple of officers … these held back the might of Germany, and held fast the barrier across the road to the Channel seas.

We learn the standard of their quality from the reports of the enemy, who failed to overcome them because they were unable to believe the simple truth of the situation. They could not believe so few men could defy them, and imagined a strong reserve. They could not believe such rapid speed of rifle fire could possibly be attained, and imagined a vast number of machine guns. They could not believe that field guns could stay in action and repulse them with a dole of ammunition.

They failed to realise the quality of the Race that opposed them, and being convinced of huge material forces, they dared not press their challenge beyond the mystery of the unbroken line.

To make the progress of the battle quite clear, it is imperative to treat its history in sectors. Any other method of describing what took place creates a confused idea, jumping from north to south of the Salient as each attack and counter-attack came about. The Battle Nomenclature Report gives us the following battles:

Battle of Armentières	13th October to 2nd November.
Battle of Messines	12th October to 2nd November.
Battles of Gheluvelt, 1914:
Langemarck	21st to 24th October.
Gheluvelt	29th to 31st October.
Nonne Bosschen	11th November.

But to picture the Salient during this great battle it will be best to think first of the map in broad bands—as all fighting was east and west—these bands enclosing the attack and defence of each sector.

NORTH SECTOR

The first Battle of Ypres may be said to have begun on the 15th October 1914, when the 7th Division, falling back through Ghent, reached that picturesque and historical Flemish town. At one time this division had been in a somewhat precarious position, being practically in the heart of the enemy’s area of operation without any supports nearer than the coast. German troops were north, south, and east of them; an attack from the direction of Courtrai or Roulers might well have forced them back on the sea-board and, if pressed heavily, with the overwhelming forces available, would in all probability have driven the division into the sea or over the Dutch frontier.

On reaching Ypres, the 7th Division took up a position some five to six miles east of the town, occupying the line Houthem—Gheluvelt—St. Julien, where on the 16th they were in touch with German outposts; the 3rd Cavalry Division covered their left flank from Zonnebeke to Westroosebeke; while French troops, mainly, however, of the “second line,” were collecting on the Yser. Both divisions, after what they had already undergone, were sadly in need of rest and refit. During the afternoon of the 17th arrangements were completed for an advance to be made next day towards Menin with the object of seizing the bridges over the River Lys, and thus impeding the further advance of strong German reinforcements which it was known were being steadily railed up from the direction of Lille. This advance started on the 18 th, but the rapidly increasing power and weight of the enemy’s forces now beginning to threaten our left flank, and the opposition met with, made the carrying out of the task so perilous an undertaking that it had to be countermanded. It was a race as to which army could concentrate with the greater rapidity, and the Germans—having by far the easier task and by far the shorter road to travel—got in first.

So the curtain rose on the great contest and, in the words of Sir John French, “The stakes for which we were playing at the great Battle of Ypres (1914) were nothing less than the safety, indeed, the very existence, of the British Empire.”

On the 19th, 20th, and 21st October 1914 fierce and bitter fighting raged round Zonnebeke, where the Germans had made continuous and desperate efforts to break through the left of the 7th Division and force their way into Ypres. The 22nd Infantry Brigade (2nd Queens, 1st Royal Welch Fusiliers, 2nd Royal Warwickshire, and 1st South Staffordshire), weary and depleted by three days of incessant fighting, had succeeded in keeping back the invading flood of the enemy by a display of those astonishing fighting powers which made the first seven divisions famous. The retirement of the French from Houthulst Forest exposed the flank of the 3rd Cavalry Division. By the evening of the 21st things began to look black indeed, and it seemed hardly conceivable that the enemy’s advance round our left could be checked by the cavalry for another 24 hours; two fresh and hitherto unsuspected German army corps had suddenly appeared from the direction of Courtrai, the pressure from the north-west became very great, and while our defence, suffering continuous losses and worn to the last stage of mental and physical exhaustion by sleeplessness and by unceasing digging and fighting, was getting weaker and weaker, the German attacking force was being perpetually augmented by fresh troops. All at once, with dramatic suddenness, the situation changed—the I Corps under Sir Douglas Haig was, by the momentous decision of the Commander-in-Chief, Sir John French, thrown into the fight, and took over the whole of our line from Zonnebeke to Bixschoote. A critical struggle followed north of the Boesinghe—Langemarck Road, where the fight, centring around the Kortekeer Cabaret, prevented the German attempt to break through on the north-east of Ypres. From these events, thus lightly touched on but of infinite consequence, when at times the destiny of our country hung in the balance, was born the Ypres Salient.

CENTRE SECTOR, ON THE MENIN ROAD

The Menin Road first comes into notice when the 7th Division, after fighting to Ghent, back along the forty miles of retirement, and withstanding the first attacks upon Ypres, initiated an offensive against very superior numbers, and on the 19th October had reached a position within two miles of Menin. This attacking movement was countermanded on information being received of the advance of hitherto unsuspected enemy forces, threatening our left flank in great strength, and the division took up a line astride the road at Kruiseecke in order to meet this new menace. Here they fought, sore pressed, but holding fast until, on the 24th October, Polygon Wood was menaced by successful enemy assaults. The I Corps, that had been fighting furiously on the northern face of t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Foreword
• Preface
• Contents
• List of Illustrations