CHAPTER VI

THE BATTLE OF YPRES--THE CRISIS

The critical phase of the great battle began on October 29. Its feature is that not only was the mass of the German force now at its maximum, but that the weight of the attack shifted from the part of the British front between La Bassee and Armentières to the centre of the British line to the south and east of Ypres. It is this phase which has been commonly called the Battle of Ypres. Except, however, as a phase, it is in no sense distinguished from the earlier fighting.

On the third day (October 31) the struggle to the east and south of Ypres reached its crisis. From that date, notwithstanding that efforts and desperate efforts continued to be made by the enemy, his defeat was in truth assured. He had shot his bolt, and shot it in vain.

To the strategical reasons which induced the Germans to throw the chief force of their attack in the first place against the right of the British line to the west of Lille, reference has already been made, and those reasons are sufficiently clear. The reasons which induced the Germans to shift it to the south and south-east of Ypres are not so obvious. Indeed, the only acceptable explanation is that their severe defeat on October 24 caused such discouragement that the plan of forcing the right of the British position was given up as impracticable.

In order to reach Ypres from the south it was necessary to win the ridge, while to reach Ypres from the east it was necessary to penetrate the almost continuous belt of woods. These woods presented an obstacle which made the organisation of the huge mass attacks, in favour with the reigning school of German tacticians, almost out of the question. Sir John French as we have seen took advantage of these features of the country skilfully to economise his force, and at the same time to conceal that fact and mislead the enemy. The Germans it is evident had by October 26 found out their mistake. They discovered that west of Lille they had been running their heads against a stone wall, and deceived by the aspects and features of the country, had been neglecting what they now considered had been a comparatively easy entrance.

When they changed their plans, however, they made yet another mistake--that of thinking or rather of presuming that the British dispositions would remain unaltered.

Through the woods to the east of Ypres there is one great main road. Beginning at Menin--that town is just on the Belgian side of the French frontier--this broad, well-paved highway runs nearly straight as an avenue into Ypres.[9] The distance is ten miles. From Ypres the great road is continued towards the coast until at Furnes it joins on to the great road which runs along the coast from Ostend through Nieuport, Dunkirk, and Gravelines to Calais.

[9] There is only one slight bend in this road, that at the hamlet of Hooge, a mile and a half out of Ypres, but this bend proved, as will be seen, of considerable tactical importance.

The importance of Menin lay in the fact that not only do several lines of railway branch out from that place southwards into France, including the railways to Lille, which is not more than ten miles away, but that it was the starting-point of this great road. Ypres again is the starting-point of a converging great road to Dunkirk. It may be remarked generally that the great main roads of Flanders run across the country from inland to the sea, and not along the country parallel with the sea. There are certain nodal points in this road system. In West Flanders, Ypres is the chief of those points. If we study the disposition of the Allied forces at this time with reference to the lines of communication, it will be seen both that they barred access to Ypres, and that west of Lille they were astride of, and therefore rendered useless to the enemy, the main line of railway from Lille to Calais. On that line Bailleul, Hazebrouck, and St. Omer are alike situated. The German advance, checked and thrown back by the unexpected appearance of the British from the Aisne, was an advance intended both to master the main line of railway, and the road system.

For a distance of some three miles the avenue from Menin to Ypres runs through the belt of woods. Six miles from Menin and four from Ypres it passes through the village of Gheluvelt, cresting there the ridge of hills. A mile to the east of Gheluvelt, and five miles from Menin, a road branches off the main avenue to Werwick on the Lys, and, on the opposite side of the avenue here there is a cross-road of no great consequence, save that it serpentines northward through the belt of woodland until it joins the main road from Ypres to Bruges. Trivial, therefore, as a public way, this cross-road was of considerable military value, since it gave access to some five miles or more of the woods.

It may be added that just by these cross-roads, east of Gheluvelt, there is a small outer ridge or rise called the hill of Kruyseik, after the village of that name lying in the hollow, and that over the main crest at Gheluvelt, and between that point and Ypres there is another rise or ridge. Behind this, on the side towards Ypres, lies the village of Zillebeke. Across the hills, again, to the south of Ypres and between that city and the Lys, there are two somewhat zigzag minor roads. The first of these passes through the village of Zandvoorde, and the second through the village of Hollebeke. Then further west we come to the main road running due south from Ypres to Armentières. Along this road, some two and a half miles out of Ypres, is St. Eloi, and two miles farther on Wytscheate.

These topographical details may appear minute, but they have to be understood because they show that, to get into Ypres from the south and south-east, the Germans had as lines of attack these four routes: the main avenue from Menin; the road through Zandvoorde; the road through Hollebeke; and the road through Wytscheate and St. Eloi; and it will be found that in fact their attacks were made along those lines.

Shrewdly foreseeing such a development of the battle, Sir John French, on October 27, unified the immediate command of the troops on his eastern front by adding them to the 1st Army Corps. They were redistributed in order to meet the probable weight of the coming assault which was almost certainly to be looked for along the main avenue from Menin. The line, in fact, was tightened up.

The 7th Division was disposed along a line some two miles in length from Zandvoorde to the Menin avenue, and held the Hill of Kruyseik.

The 1st Division continued the line from this point northwards and along the outer or eastern fringe of the belt of woods to near the village of Reytel.

The 2nd Division continued the line, also along the outer fringe of the woods, to Zonnebeke.

Altogether these troops, some 50,000 strong, occupied a front of about six miles. It was an exceptionally strong position, affording among other things first-rate shelter for the guns. Bearing in mind, however, that they were preparing to meet an assault from nearly ten times their own number, supported by an enormously superior strength in artillery, no precaution could be neglected.

The dispositions just outlined were made only just in time. At daybreak, on October 29, the attack began. The three divisions, all of them seasoned veterans, had hardly dug themselves in when a terrific bombardment opened. Since their trenches were practically invisible, this bombardment proved more noisy than harmful. It was the prelude to the advance along the Menin road of an enormous German column. Flank and supporting columns advanced at the same time along the road to Zandvoorde, and the minor roads north of the main avenue to Reytel and Zonnebeke. The attack was pressed along almost the whole front with the greatest determination. Its principal object was to secure the Kruyseik Hill, and with it the road junction east of Gheluvelt. By weight of numbers, and despite heavy losses--the terms used with regard to German losses in this battle may appear to be exaggeration, but in fact they are not--the enemy succeeded in capturing the Kruyseik Hill. That was about two in the afternoon, after a struggle lasting nearly eight hours.

With the capture of the hill, they were able to assault the British line north of the Menin road in flank, and at this point they broke it. Elsewhere, however, along the front their onset had been disastrous. When close to the British lines they wavered under the almost unbroken fire from the trenches, General Sir Douglas Haig gave the order for a general counter-attack. Looking only for a "passive resistance," the Germans were taken wholly by surprise. They tried to rally, but in vain. The shock threw their columns into confusion, and their whole front gave way. In the impetus the British troops rushed and retook the Kruyseik Hill by storm. In the captured trenches across the main road to the north of it a body of the enemy, though raked by fire in front and in flank, held out until nightfall, when nearly the whole of them had been killed or wounded. The trenches were recovered, and the survivors taken prisoners.

Beaten in the attempt to advance from Menin, the enemy the same night renewed the battle in an endeavour to retake Le Gheir on the Lys and to break the front at that point. The attack proved a total failure, though the British position was here astride of the river, and consequently from the tactical standpoint weak. At midnight a huge column of 12,000 men was hurled against the trenches held at Croix Marechal by the Middlesex Regiment. They came on with the greatest determination. Part of the trenches fell into their hands. The Middlesex, however, with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders who had been hurried forward to their support, began a counter-attack. This fight, one of the bitterest episodes of the battle, went on through the night. The scene lighted up luridly and fitfully by star shell and flares, by the flashing volleys of the rifles, and by the explosions from minute to minute of shrapnel, was at once weird and awful. The Germans were raked by a destructive fire from both flanks. As fast, however, as they fell others rushed into the trench line from their rear. So for nearly four hours the slaughter and the combat went on. At any price the enemy appeared resolved to hold this advantage. But towards daybreak the British infantry, having steadily closed in, rushed forward. The line of trenches, now choked with German dying and dead, was recaptured at the point of the bayonet. Fighting to the last gasp, not more than forty uninjured Germans were taken prisoners. The rout of the great column was driven back upon the hostile lines beyond the railway.

While this struggle to the death was taking place at Croix Marechal, the enemy was gathering his forces for another onslaught of unparalleled magnitude. It began at dawn on October 30, and was an effort to fight across the hills by way of Zandvoorde and Hollebeke. In this there were employed five German army corps, aggregating nearly 300,000 men. Opposed to them along this line were the British troops of the 7th Division and the Cavalry Division, less than a tenth of their number. The advance along the Menin road and through the woods having turned out to be too difficult, the Germans were now at last trying this way. Once more the onset was supported by a mighty bombardment, and once more the bombardment did comparatively little damage. What told was the weight of numbers. The attack came forward in two enormous masses. That thrown against Zandvoorde comprised three army corps, the 13th and 15th Prussians, and the 2nd Bavarians. That thrown against Hollebeke comprised two corps. A special Army Order had been issued telling the troops that the Kaiser considered the success of this attack to be of vital importance to the issue of the war, and, indeed, for the reasons already shown, it was. Of course and conversely its failure affected the issue of the war not less vitally.

Forward and up the southern slopes of the ridge these masses, fortified by the Imperial order, swarmed in numbers that appeared to be countless, for to the eye even 100,000 men looks a multitude innumerable. The British gunners, pushing their guns forward daringly for greater effect, lashed them with a storm of shrapnel; the thin line in the British trenches shot them until the rifles were red hot. They went down not in hundreds, but in thousands. Still they came on, crushing under their boots dead and dying indifferently. It was the supreme manifestation of the Will to Power; the climax of the War-lord's method of making war. Such numbers could not be finished in the time. When those in front wavered under the swishing lash of leaden death, those behind pushed them on. They surged onwards like the waves of a rising tide. Doubtless this sounds mere imagination. It is, however, but the feeblest reflection of the truth. There was nothing for it except, while time yet allowed, for the 3rd Cavalry Division, who were holding the trenches on the ridge east of Zandvoorde, to decamp, and to decamp in a hurry. Likely enough, the Germans were astonished to discover the comparatively contemptible handful who had offered such a daring defence. The woods just to the rear of the British trenches aided the escape of these heroes. Relatively their casualties had been few. With the nimbleness of Redskins they disappeared among the tree trunks as the grey-green flood of the enemy, seeing their retreat, surged forward in a last rush and with a roar of triumph, sending after them a hail of in the main futile bullets. Through the woods of the mile of intervening valley to the Kleine Zillebeke ridge, the British raced from one cover to another, keeping up a lively fire from every point from which the enemy on the main ridge were in view. This seems to have given the impression that the little valley was crowded with skirmishers, a gentry for whom the Germans had by now imbibed a wholesome respect. They halted accordingly on the Zandvoorde ridge to reform.

This pause was fatal, and it is not too much to say that at that moment the issue of the battle lay upon the knees of the gods. The pause enabled Sir Douglas Haig to re-establish his line. The fateful moment had passed, and the grey-faced Emperor waiting anxiously in Courtrai for the news that was to make him master of Europe was little conscious that the scale of fate had gone down against him.

Yet it had. The British line was re-formed from Gheluvelt along the Kleine Zillebeke ridge to the Ypres and Lille canal at the point where alongside the Ypres and Lille railway it enters the deep cutting in which both canal and railway are carried across the main ridge of hills. The strength of this position lay in the fact that behind it was an area of woodland nearly two miles in depth. Along the bottom of the valley or depression separating these woods from those on the opposite slope lay a space of cleared land. This afforded a good field of fire. On the other hand, the woods on the opposite slope made it impossible to organise an attack in the immense mass in which the Germans had swarmed over the cleared top of the ridge they now held.

The position now taken up by the British troops was, therefore, strong, and had been chosen with a good judgment and a practical eye. Besides that, the line was stiffened. It was intended to hold this position "at all costs." In the front trenches were the troops of the 1st Division and the 4th Brigade. The 2nd Brigade formed an immediately supporting line. A battalion was placed in the woods as a reserve.

The Germans, however, did not forthwith press their advance, but contented themselves, for the time being, with making good their position on the main ridge. This, as already pointed out, was a fatal mistake. To render the British line more secure, and to strengthen its weak point--that nearest the canal--three infantry battalions and a cavalry brigade were transferred from the 9th French Army Corps.

We now come to the concurrent German attack against Hollebeke. The British trenches at Hollebeke were held by the 2nd Cavalry Division; those on the right to the south-west and towards Messines by the 1st Cavalry Division. This comparative handful of men had had to be spaced out over four miles of country. They were but a single line, less than a man, on the average, to every two yards, and yet they had to face the onset of two army corps of the best troops of Germany!

Since the front towards Hollebeke was too narrow for the employment of such a mass of the enemy with effect, and since, too, this attack was in fact a turning movement destined to assist the chief thrust through Zandvoorde, the onset here forked, one tremendous column pressing north towards Hollebeke and the other west towards Wytscheate.

It might well be supposed that with their weight of numbers the Germans would have walked, or rather have romped, over the barrier. Instead of that the cavalry of the 2nd Division held on to their trenches, defeating assault after assault from daybreak until afternoon. They were at last, spent with the conflict, forced to give way. Meanwhile Sir John French had reached the front. At a glance he took in the crisis of the position. Two regiments of the 3rd Cavalry Division were rushed along the line to the 2nd Division's support. Two battalions of the 7th Indian Division were also held to meet the emergency. At the same time the London Scottish Territorials and four battalions of the 2nd British Army Corps were ordered forward to Neuve Eglise for the like purpose. During the lull in the battle already referred to, from October 27 to October 29, Sir John French had placed the Indian Army Corps in the positions on the right of his line to the west of Lille, then occupied by his 2nd Army Corps. The latter were exhausted by fourteen days of continuous hard fighting. They were now available as a general reserve. The value and the necessity of this precaution is too manifest to need emphasis.

Re-formed as the line now was a little beyond Hollebeke, it continued the front across the ridge from the Ypres and Lille canal to near Messines. This section of the front was important for two reasons. In the first place it barred the Germans off the main road from Lille to Ypres. In the second place it prevented the enemy from turning the position of the troops commanded by Sir Douglas Haig by cutting their communications with Ypres. That, of course, formed one of the objectives of this attack. Another was to obtain the command both of the main road and of the Ypres and Lille railway. At Hollebeke and even now just beyond it the British were astride the railway line.

With objects like these in view it is easy to infer that the onset was pressed with all the vigour at the enemy's command. He had on this section alone nearly 500 guns. These, both supporting and in the intervals between his massed infantry attacks, poured upon the trenches and behind them in order to keep reinforcements at bay, constant squalls of shrapnel. Because less than 5,000 men were here resisting more than 100,000, and continued to resist them all that day and all through the succeeding night, and all through the next day and all through the following night also, and because at the end of that, in truth, indescribable time, though the storm of the hostile guns never ceased, and infantry attack after infantry attack drove forward, only to melt into bloody confusion and wreck before the terrible power of the magazine rifle handled by resolute and veteran soldiers, it must not be supposed that the energy and the ferocity of the enemy were less than both had often before proved to be. The Germans had never fought with greater determination. Their defeat arose from the attempt to ride rough-shod over this apparently feeble line of defence by sheer weight of numbers. The British fought not merely with skill, but with the skill of masters. The Germans, confident in their seemingly crushing strength, fought without patience, and with the clumsiness of amateurs. They aimed at a speedy and a showy triumph. In spite of all their military apparatus and machinery, and of their precision in drill, they fought, in fact, like a mob, and like a mob in such circumstances their losses were frightful. Not only the defects of their military system--its exaltation of the machine, and its depression of the man--were here exposed, but the still worse and superimposed defects of their latest ideas of tactics. Ignoring the realities as distinguished from the mere appearances of modern war, these ideas were the ideas of fantasy. To train men as an army, to employ them in battle as a mob, and, as a result, to look for victory, is of all notions the nearest akin to dementia.

A conflict with these odds, and with this outcome has never before occurred in modern war. Nothing like it, indeed, has occurred in war since Leonidas and his Spartans defended the Pass of Thermopylæ. This fight was the Thermopylæ of modern times. It is no fanciful comparison. There was the same heroic devotion and military brilliance on the one side; there was the same use of a vast army as a mob on the other. In spirit and in method the military systems of ancient Persia and of modern Prussia are by no means as far apart as the distance in time might lead us to suppose. The story of these heroes of the British cavalry ought to be remembered as long as in any part of the world there is a man of British stock who cherishes a love for the islands of his origin, and can thrill to the splendours of their story.

Of the onset made by the Bavarian Army Corps against Wytscheate a correspondent of the _Daily Telegraph_ contributed an admirable record. This witness states:

The perilous stroke smote the British line just south of Ypres, and, as luck would have it, was adequately lit up by a silver moonlight. The dense masses of Bavarian infantry sprang up with one accord. Their pale uniforms and bayonets were lit up by the ghostly light, and formed a strange and terrifying picture, for the attacking line stretched far, and was supported by numerous small columns in reserve. The sight of this concerted advance in the night was highly picturesque and impressive, but it failed to shake the nerves of our stalwart cavalry.

Exposing their flank to sheets of fire from the neighbourhood of Ypres, the Bavarians pressed bravely forward, but all the while the steady rattle of the defenders' rifles from the trenches swept one rank away after the other. As fast as the German soldiers fell fresh groups pressed into the gap, and forced the line onward, but the toll of death shattered the constancy and corporate existence of an army corps.

At one point or more our line was pierced by the surging mass of the assailants, and a partial retirement took place for a mile or more in the dark. But the enemy's strength was sapped, and a comparatively weak counter-attack made in the grey of the morning by fragments of regiments and fragments of squadrons, collected hastily by the firmness of surviving officers, and backed by some infantry supports hastily thrust forward, was successful in recovering the greater part of the lost ground. As reinforcements arrived on the scene next day, and as our artillery concentrated its bombardment on the spot, the whole position was restored, and the attack of an army corps was definitely foiled by about one-fifth of its numbers.

October 31 was the crisis of the battle. During the night of October 30 the German flood, lashing in vain against the trenches held by the cavalry across the ridge, swirled in ponderous weight against those held by the 11th Division Infantry at St. Yves, near the point where the British front crossed the Lys. The front here broke under the pressure. The breach, however, was only momentary. With a heroism beyond praise, Major Prowse instantly led the Somersets in a counter-attack. That intrepid corps, despite the enemy's ferociously tenacious resistance, drove him out. It was a bayonet fight, and a bayonet fight at its worst. The sturdy west countrymen, however, proved more than a match for any Prussians. They swept into the combat with the smash of a sledge-hammer added to the keenness of a high-speed tool, and wrought havoc. Against such a spirit and prowess numbers were unavailing.

All through that night, while the thunder of the conflict was heard and its flare seen fifty miles away, the enemy smashed at this section of the front. But it was a front of iron. Weighing his words, Sir John French says in his dispatch:

I am anxious to bring to special notice the excellent work done throughout this battle by the Third Corps under General Pulteney's command. Their position in the right central part of my line was of the utmost importance to the general success of the operations. Besides the very undue length of front which the Corps was called upon to cover (some twelve or thirteen miles), the position presented many weak spots, and was also astride of the River Lys, the right bank of which from Frelinghein downwards was strongly held by the enemy.

It was impossible to provide adequate reserves, and the constant work in the trenches tried the endurance of officers and men to the utmost. That the Corps was invariably successful in repulsing the constant attacks, sometimes in great strength, made against them by day and by night is due entirely to the skilful manner in which the Corps was disposed by its commander, who has told me of the able assistance he has received throughout from his Staff, and the ability and resource displayed by Divisional, Brigade, and Regimental leaders in using the ground and the means of defence at their disposal to the very best advantage.

The courage, tenacity, endurance, and cheerfulness of the men in such unparalleled circumstances are beyond all praise.

So far, then, we have this result: that neither the attack through Zandvoorde, the turning movement against Hollebeke and Wytscheate, nor the supporting attack against St. Yves had achieved its object.

Stopped in their advance through Zandvoorde, alike by the strength of the Allied position on the Kleine Zillebeke ridge, and by the reinforcement of the line, which, after this experience made them judge a frontal assault totally impracticable, the Germans determined to turn this barrier by reverting, on October 31, to their first scheme of an advance along the main avenue from Menin. This, indeed, was in this direction the only practicable way through the woodland belt.

When, at daybreak, their intention became evident, General Moussy, in command of the reinforcement sent the previous day from the 9th French Army Corps, tried to anticipate it by a counter-attack. He pushed forward to the south-east of Gheluvelt. There, however, in face of the great strength of the enemy he was brought to a standstill. Along the great road from Menin the Germans advanced in a mass of enormous depth, which was in truth a human battering ram. By this means they meant to smash through into Ypres despite any resistance that could be offered, and despite any losses. The battle developed at this point as a struggle at very short range. It swayed now this way and now that, as attack was followed by counter-attack. At length the pent-up mass of the enemy broke through, and swept along the road. The line of the 1st Division of Infantry at Gheluvelt was broken. Gheluvelt was taken by the Germans; the flank of the 7th Division along the Kleine Zillebeke range was exposed; the Royal Scots Fusiliers, remaining in their trenches, were surrounded. The way open through Gheluvelt and the main road, the enemy rushed up a great force of guns and began shelling the British positions in enfilade right and left. Concurrently an attack was begun from Zandvoorde along the main road leading across the intervening valley, and through the woods past Kleine Zillebeke. The 7th Division were driven back through the woods towards Ypres. It looked this time as though the German thrust had gone home. The situation was assuredly critical. Sir John French earlier in the day had come to Hooge, on the Menin road. There, when the troops fell back, he found himself in the thick of the fighting. But he had taken his measures. Advancing along the Menin road the Germans exposed the flank of their huge column. This was their vulnerable point. The British general at once threw upon it all the force he had within striking distance to the north of the avenue. The 1st and part of the 2nd Division of the 1st Army Corps, some 27,000 men, were swung against the German flank in a mighty counter-attack. The manoeuvre turned the tide of battle. It was one of those bold flashes of resource which mark off great commanders from mediocre commanders. The enemy's advance was immediately arrested. Thereupon the retiring British troops rallied. Thus held in front and attacked in flank, the German masses, crowded together in a space too small for their numbers, were destroyed wholesale. Their resistance, though fierce, was brief. The onset broke them. Into and through the woods south of the Menin road they fell back, confused and routed, upon Zandvoorde. Gheluvelt was retaken. Here, to cover the retreat, a large body of the enemy attempted, behind hastily thrown up barricades, to hold out. The gunners of the 42nd Brigade R.F.A. blew the barricades to pieces. Then the Worcestershires rushed the village with the bayonet.

The result of this signal success was that the front was restored nearly to the line it had occupied at the beginning of the day. Many of the enemy still remained in the woods. The 6th Cavalry Brigade was given the work of hunting them out. "They advanced," says Sir John French, "with much dash, partly mounted and partly dismounted; and surprising the enemy, succeeded in killing large numbers and materially helped to restore the line."

If the chance of victory passed from the German arms with their fatal hesitancy on the preceding day, this crushing defeat of their main attack made efforts to retrieve their fortunes hopeless. The attacks against Hollebeke and round Messines continued all through this day, and as already said, through the following night. They were wasted. The hammering went on too against the front down to Givenchy. Though by one of their battering-ram assaults the enemy had driven the Indian troops out of and to the west of Neuve Chapelle, the hope of piercing the front was not realised. The Indians, probably thought an easy proposition by comparison, turned out also to be stuff too tough to be broken. The Gurkhas and the famous Corps of Sappers and Miners were brilliant, and justly won the honourable mention given them in the Commander-in-Chief's dispatches.