CHAPTER VIII

THE BATTLE ON THE YSER

As we have seen, the gigantic Battle of Ypres presented four phases.

During the first phase, from October 11 to October 17, the British Army, pivoting upon Givenchy, drove the Germans from Hazebrouck to Lille.

During the second phase, from October 18 to October 24, the Germans, resuming the offensive, hurled the weight of their attack against the sector of the British front to the west of Lille. The British positions had meanwhile been extended round Ypres to the south and east, and the line of the Allies formed as far as the coast.

The third phase was marked by the effort of the enemy, now enormously reinforced, to break through into Ypres from the south-east, aided by a turning movement from the south. The fighting during the three days, October 29 to October 31, formed the crisis of the battle. It has been stated in the French Army Bulletin summarising the operations from October 21 to November 15, that the Emperor of Germany, who had at this time taken up his head-quarters at Courtrai, "announced that he wanted to be in Ypres by November 1, and every preparation had been made for the proclamation on that day of the annexation of Belgium."

In the fourth and final phase of the battle the Germans tried to pierce the Allied line between Ypres and the Lys through Wytscheate and Messines. That defeated, the great mass assault was made against Ypres from the east by the Prussian Guard on November 11.

While German infantry attacks continued to be made until November 15, they were no more than the sullen efforts of a baffled but still bitter foe. The stress of the fighting lasted from October 11 to November 11, that is exactly one month. For a second time in this Western campaign there had been in a great pitched battle, a trial of strength, and for a second time the forces of Germany had, as on the Marne, gone down.

It is important to keep these phases of the Battle of Ypres in mind. They throw light on the battle which was concurrently, from October 17 to October 31, being fought on the Yser.

From its source in the hills west of Ypres to the sea the whole course of the Yser does not exceed 20 miles. It is a stream, however, of a quite exceptional character. Running through a tract of country for the most part below sea level, it is more like two streams flowing in the same direction, and connected by winding cross channels. On a smaller scale the like effect may be seen in the channels on stretches of flat shore at ebb tide. The Yser was of course nothing more originally than a network of such channels running through the mud flats, and though all this part of the Lowlands was more than a thousand years ago finally reclaimed from the sea, the waters continued to flow along the ancient beds. They have been connected besides by canals. In the Middle Ages when Ypres was a great centre of trade, and one of the most populous cities of Europe, these canals were busy arteries of commerce. The country between Ypres and the coast, one of the most fertile tracts in the world, was at the outbreak of this War full of quaint and picturesque memorials of its former importance. In modern days, and more especially under the wise and beneficial rule of the present Royal House of Belgium, it was a picture of peaceful and settled wealth.

On the Yser half-way between Ypres and the sea was the old town of Dixmude, with a church and a hôtel de ville which were masterpieces of Gothic architecture. Towards the coast, where the line of sand dunes has in part covered the ancient dykes, the river takes a sharp bend to west. A tract about two miles wide and three miles long is thus enclosed on the east between the river channels on the one side and the sea on the other. This was occupied by the little sea-side residential places, Lombartzyde and Westende. Nieuport lay on the west bank of the river a mile or more inland. The Yser here becomes one channel, deep enough to be navigated by shipping of moderate draught. It was crossed at Nieuport by five bridges, Between them lay the series of locks dividing the tidal part of the Yser from the inland reaches. The locks were those used to regulate the river overflow at low tide while keeping out the sea when the tide was at flood.

There are two points of some importance on the west bank of the Yser between Dixmude and Nieuport--the villages of Pervyse and Ramscappel. Both are on the main road connecting the two towns. Five miles farther to the west lies the town of Furnes, already mentioned as the meeting place of the great road from Ypres with that running along the coast from Ostend through Nieuport and on to Dunkirk and Calais. The great roads, and indeed most of the main roads and canals in this part of Flanders are carried along embankments. Before the war these were mostly bordered with trees, affording in winter shelter from the cold winds which sweep over the country from the North Sea, and welcome shade in summer. It was a land of deep repose, and for nearly 100 years and until the coming of the Goth, nothing save the mellow chime floating distantly from some tall and noble spire reared in far off days by pious hands, had broken in upon its dreaming.

General Joffre issued the first orders directed towards his great scheme of military envelopment on September 11. This promptitude was essential. When in the first phase of the battle of Ypres the British drove the Germans back upon Lille, the strategical effect was to tear in the German front a gap from Lille to beyond Thourout, a distance of nearly thirty miles. The Germans had to mass their forces at Lille in order to keep their hold on that place.

Through the gap thus made the French pushed forward four divisions of cavalry, two divisions of their Territorial troops, and a division of marines, 6,000 strong. Already, however, on October 15, the Germans had, north of the gap towards the coast, two army corps, and these were in the course of the next two or three days reinforced by two others. The objective of these troops was to seize Nieuport and the crossing of the Yser.

The Belgian Army reached Nieuport from Antwerp on October 16. That army was, however, not immediately fit for further service. In these circumstances the line of the Yser from Nieuport to Dixmude was held by the French cavalry and marines, while the 1st division of British infantry was thrown forward to Bixschoote, with the 2nd division in support. Later along the Yser and round Ypres, where after November 20 they relieved the British, the French forces on this part of the front were brought up to five army corps. At this date in mid October, however, all that could be opposed to the German mass aggregating 240,000 men detailed to seize the crossings of the Yser, were these French cavalry, one division of marines, and two divisions of British infantry, not 45,000 in all.

The first German thrust against Nieuport was made on October 17, and it must inevitably have succeeded had it not been that the enemy came within range of and were enfiladed by the fire of a British flotilla. This equivalent to a destructive attack in flank wrecked the attempt. The shells of the warships raked the German lines as far inland as Dixmude.

The Germans realised that at Nieuport, in face of the guns of the British ships, they could not succeed. They made ready, in consequence, to throw their attack against Dixmude. For that purpose they waited until their whole force could come up. Their first attempt had been made with two army corps only. The respite enabled the Belgian army to be refitted. Both sides meanwhile proceeded to dig themselves in. In this region the water level is not more than two feet below the surface. No sooner were the trenches cut than the water oozed in. These conditions were aggravated by days and nights of heavy and almost incessant rain. A dense mist overhung the country. The nights, too, were now becoming bitterly cold. On the side of the Germans the numbers were large enough to afford reliefs. They were not large enough on the side of the Allies. The Belgians passed days and nights in the trenches under these conditions without respite. It was an effort of endurance that has never been paralleled. But for their unconquerable spirit these heroic men could not have come through such an ordeal. They were defending, however, the last few square miles of their country and they were defending that last bit of territory from foes whose pitiless cruelty they had seen in butchery and outrage. Behind them they had the memory of a happy freedom. Before them lay only the prospect of submitting for ever to the odious tyranny which had laid some of the fairest towns and districts of Belgium in ruins. In that mudded and warworn army there was a fire no hardship could subdue.

On October 21 opened the great German drive. It was directed alike and at once to the seizure of Ramscappel so as to compel the Belgians to evacuate Nieuport; against Dixmude; and farther south against the British positions at Bixschoote. The latter point was as far as natural conditions were concerned the easiest crossing of the three. There is here only one channel of the Yser with a line of canal on either side of it. The three attacks were made simultaneously because they brought into play the vast German superiority in numbers.

The enemy had massed along this front a great weight of guns, including the heavy pieces used in the attack on Antwerp, and his plan was to draw west of the Yser an impenetrable curtain of fire while he constructed pontoon bridges. There were difficulties. First the river channels were in flood. Secondly they were commanded by the French and Belgian guns. Thirdly and along their length they were under the cross fire from the warships. This acute spasm of the battle, lasting without a moment's respite for three days and two nights, was therefore in one of its main features a gigantic artillery duel.

Pontoon bridges constructed by the Germans were destroyed by the French gunners or by the shells from the warships time and again. More than once the bridges were struck and wrecked when they were crowded with troops and these miserable men, thrown in a struggling mass into the water, were drowned by hundreds. Time after time the Germans endeavoured to bridge the river, or rather the network of rivers before the effort at length succeeded.

Then from Ramscappel the Belgians were forced to retire. Once across the river with a considerable force of infantry, cavalry, and guns, the Germans seized Pervyse, and pushed forward to Furnes with such speed that the small Belgian reserve force there, surprised by them, had to quit hastily. A surprise, however, was also in store for the Germans. A division of French Algerian troops, who had been sent forward by forced marches to reinforce the Belgian resistance, were already close at hand. They reached Furnes shortly after the German advance force had established themselves there. The attack was as impetuous as it was unexpected. The Turcos cleared the Germans out of the place at the point of the bayonet. Enemy reinforcements, however, hurried up. In turn the Germans tried to carry the town by storm. The struggle went on from street to street and from house to house. Again and again the Germans were driven out. Again and again they rallied and renewed the fight. As night came on the French commander called upon his men for a supreme effort. It was victorious. Broken by this onslaught, the Germans were not only chased out of Furnes but pursued to Ramscappel and driven out of that village as well. Behind them their bridges over the Yser had in the meantime again been destroyed. Mr. A. Beaumont, special correspondent of the _Daily Telegraph_, who reached Furnes the following day, has recorded that:

The roads from Ramscappel to Pervyse, and from Pervyse to Dixmude were lined with the enemy's dead. Many of the fugitives tried to escape by the fields and canals, and their bodies are still found in great numbers. As in many other places in the north, quite a number of these Germans are very young, apparently under eighteen, or else more than fifty years of age.

King Albert of Belgium desired in person to honour the French troops who had helped to reconquer the village (Ramscappel), and an impressive ceremony was held a few days later. The King passed in review the survivors of the gallant companies of Turcos and Chasseurs in the little square. They were assembled at eight o'clock in the morning, and drawn up in a square in the presence of a French general. The King arrived in a motor-car and alighted at once. Three buglers, who had gone through it all, sounded the call, and the commander of the troops moved forward to salute them. The King likewise raised his hand in a long and silent salute. Then, accompanied by the General in command he passed down the lines, after which the troops in turn defiled in his presence. The buglers did their best, but their shrill notes were not in accord; yet tears came to the eyes of many spectators of this scene, and not the least moved among them was the King himself. The General then rode forward, and in a loud voice said: "The King desires me to transmit to you his hearty congratulations for your splendid conduct at Ramscappel; this is an honour of which your commander is justly proud."

Of the attack on Dixmude an account was sent by a German who took part in it to _Vorwärts_. He relates:

We lay for four whole days without anything to eat or drink. Day and night the earth trembled with the reports of the guns. No sleep was possible. Behind us lay a field of roots. Creeping down the bank in order not to be seen by the enemy, we managed to get some of them. We sucked up the night dew on the grass in order to slake our thirst. After four days we had to give up the position in order to attack the enemy from another side.

Next day it began to rain, and we stood up to the knees in water, and replied to the fire of the enemy until the evening came. All was quiet for a time. But the cannons continued their work. We watched by turns while the others sat in the water, and, leaning against the trenches, tried to sleep. A terrible picture faced us. Dixmude was in flames, and the whole sky was blood-red. The enemy's shells exploded with such a report that we thought our ears would burst, and the light was so strong that you could read a paper by it. Dealing death and destruction, the shower of lead sped through the night air over our heads. In the morning the sun rose a fiery red.

It was the death signal for many of us, for Dixmude had to be stormed. At two o'clock we received an order for the attack. We left our firing places, and at once came under fire. By short rushes we approached the strongly held trenches of the enemy. Air and earth shook with the reports of the guns, for the enemy were firing from at least twenty batteries. Many of us were torn in pieces. Amidst it all, the rifles and the machine guns made their peculiar noise. It was a veritable field of death. Right and left of me comrades fell. We reached a small ditch and blazed away, and there a bullet hit my rifle, glanced off, and went through the head of the man next to me.

At last we came within 200 metrès of the enemy's position. Their fire grew fiercer, but our rage was the greater. Then the enemy received reinforcements, and brought up three machine guns, which they trained on us. The top of my helmet was shot away, and the bullets pierced my spade.

Next came shells such as we had never seen before. The sand spurted up as high as a house. One shell made a hole at least two yards deep in the ground. The black smoke rendered it almost impossible to see anything. These were the shells of the British Fleet which had taken part in the battle. In the middle of a field near us eight horses were suddenly torn into shreds by one. What was that? It was a bugle signal, "Fix bayonets." In a minute we rushed forward another 100 yards. Then we took a breathing-space. What was that? I could neither see nor hear, for I was hurled back three yards with my head against a tree. For a moment I lost consciousness, and when I came to I knew that I had not been hit. I rushed forward to join my comrades. I will not tell you anything about the bayonet charge, for it was a slaughter. Twice we were driven back, but at the third attack we won. When you heard about the victory did you not cry "Hurrah"? But we thought upon the terrible sacrifices that had been made, for many lay dead. I was hit in the pursuit of the enemy, but I need not describe what it looked like in the enemy's trenches. The men lay one over another.

At Bixschoote the Germans succeeded in capturing part of the British trenches held by the 1st Division. These, however, were wrested from the enemy in a brilliantly executed counterattack. To the troops for this service the Brigadier-General in command issued a special order of congratulation. This document gives a clear summary of the operation:

The 2nd Infantry Brigade (less 2nd Battalion Sussex Regiment left at Beesinghe) was allotted the task of reinforcing the 1st Infantry Brigade, and re-taking the trenches along the Bixsencote-Langemarck road, which had been occupied by the enemy.

In spite of the stubborn resistance offered by the German troops, the object of the engagement was accomplished, but not without many casualties in the Brigade.

By nightfall the trenches previously captured by the Germans had been re-occupied, about 500 prisoners captured, and fully 1,500 German dead were lying out in front of our trenches.

The Brigadier-General congratulates the 1st L.N. Lancashire Regiment, Northamptonshire Regiment, and the 2nd King's Royal Rifle Corps, but desires specially to commend the fine soldierlike spirit of the 1st L.N. Lancashire Regiment, which, advancing steadily under heavy shell and rifle fire, aided by its machine guns, was enabled to form up within a comparatively short distance of the enemy's trenches.

Fixing bayonets, the battalion then charged, carried the trenches and occupied them, and to them must be allotted the majority of the prisoners captured.

The Brigadier-General congratulates himself on having in his brigade a battalion, which, after marching the whole of the previous night without rest or food, was able to maintain its splendid record in the past, by the determination and self-sacrifice displayed in the action.

The Brigadier-General has received special telegrams of congratulations from both the General officer Commanding-in-chief 1st Corps, and from the General officer commanding 1st Division, and he hopes that in the next engagement in which the brigade takes part the high reputation which the brigade already holds, may be further added to.

In truth the immediate impetus of the German onset had exhausted itself in the violent and costly efforts put forth. After an interval of not more than six hours Dixmude was retaken, and the Belgians, advancing from Nieuport, took and entrenched themselves in Lombartzyde. Despite its frightful cost in life, the second attempt to get across the Yser had tragically failed.

After reorganising the Germans began the third great attempt on October 9. This was even more determined and more wasteful of life than the second. Again it was persisted in for three days. The scenes were a repetition of those of the week before, if anything, they were still more terrible, for the resistance was as unflinching as the attack was bitter. On the evidence of men who had taken part in the battle, Mr. Frederick de Bathe, special correspondent of the _Daily Telegraph_, wrote:

The Germans tried nineteen times to cross the Yser at one point; on each occasion they were repulsed by the Belgian and French troops, which were massed upon the opposite bank.

It is said that the enemy lost whole regiments. A wounded German officer who was taken prisoner affirms that of his regiment, which went into action 2,000 strong, only eighty were left unscathed. While claiming that the Belgian and French had suffered big losses, he admitted that these were nothing in comparison to those sustained by the Germans. He added that it was not a battle, it was butchery! A peasant, who came through the German lines, reports that the enemy have no time to bury their dead singly, but are obliged to have them carried away in three-wheeled farm carts by the country people in loads of twenty to twenty-five, and removed to the rear of their positions for burial.

The cross-fire from the British Fleet prevented the Germans from advancing along the coast, obliging them to throw pontoon bridges over the Yser. The pontoons sank time after time with their human burden, shattered by the shells of the Allies. It is no exaggeration to state that the Germans on the Yser alone up to date have lost 75,000 men killed and wounded, and this does not include the prisoners, who have been numerous. Over 8,000 of the enemy's wounded who were being brought to Bruges and Courtrai, via Thourout, were abandoned on Sunday last, and were obliged to make the ten-hour journey on foot.

The churches of Thourout and in the neighbourhood, as well as all the farms which are still standing, are crammed with wounded. Hundreds of German wounded are streaming in day and night throughout the region behind the enemy's lines. In certain places close to the Yser between Nieuport and Dixmude the ground is literally covered with corpses of men and horses. The shrapnel from the British Fleet has caused more than three-parts of the slaughter in this particular direction. The scene is indescribable.

Three times the Germans fought their way over through the cross fire of the Allied guns, ashore and afloat, and three times they were thrown back. The enemy's expenditure of ammunition was as prodigal as his expenditure of men.

Then began a systematic destruction which has had no parallel in modern war. The Germans set themselves to batter the country into ruins, they bombarded and wrecked not only Nieuport, Dixmude, and Ypres, but every village and hamlet within range of their guns. Of this, after having seen its effect, Mr. E. Ashmead-Bartlett said:

This part of Belgium, perfectly flat, is studded with picturesque old Flemish homes. Almost every village of any size possesses buildings of historic or architectural interest. The old church of Dixmude was one of the finest buildings of its kind in the countryside, and so also was the Hôtel de Ville. What remains of these buildings would not be worth the while to cart away as old bricks.

As a machine of pure destruction the Kaiser's army is unique. I doubt whether any other army in the history of the world has had the knack of laying waste a whole country so completely. They wipe out everything.

These towns and villages play no part in the defence of the Yser. They are merely shell-traps, where no general would think of placing his men.

As a revenge on an innocent civil population, who thus lose their hearths and homes, and are now refugees all over France, Holland, and England, the plan succeeds admirably. On the other hand, the defence is materially aided, because the fire is taken off the troops in the trenches and on the long trains making their way to the front with food, ammunition, and supplies of all kinds. I do not believe the line of the Yser could have been held had the Germans scientifically supported their infantry attacks with this tremendous volume of shell fire, with which they have laid low Dixmude, Pervyse, Nieuport, and fifty other smaller towns and villages.

The crowning act, however, of this "revenge," deliberately indulged in that the attention of the world might be drawn off the crushing disasters suffered by German arms, was the ruin of Ypres. That act of vandalism was not, it is necessary to remember, done during the battle or for any military purpose. It was begun after the battle, and when the issue, and with it the future history of Europe, had been for ever changed. Of what that ruin was there has been drawn by Mr. Luigi Barzini a picture of enduring reality. He was one of three civilians who visited Ypres while this bombardment was going on. His description appeared in the _Daily Telegraph_ of December 2, 1914.

At a turn of the road, the town appeared in the distance--two mutilated campaniles, a ruin of massive towers, and the ancient belfry, with its vague bluish carvings. In the dull, declining day, the trees at the edge of the plain seemed like a dark mist. They formed, as it were, a sombre border of cloud on the horizon, and above the network of branches rose the remains of the bombarded town, pale and sinister, with something unreal and death-like in their mutilated aspect--phantasms of a massacred glory.

At short intervals the air was shaken by the bombardment, and, urged by the wind, two clouds of white smoke fled between the trees and vanished amidst their branches. Two flashes of livid light burst on high, and for an instant the top of the towers disappeared in a cloud. The destructive fury of the German guns still continued to strike the heart of Ypres. The road had been converted into a desert.

We had left behind us towns and villages crowded with troops, immense parks of carts and motor-lorries scattered over the meadows, extensive encampments at the edges of the road, in which the innumerable piles of arms seemed like black sheaves crowned with points, the general quarters of divisions and brigades denoted by standards. Then, having passed Vlamertynghe, about three miles from Ypres, we came upon the sinister solitude of a modern battle.

There was no other voice, no other sound, than the boom of cannon and the crash of shell. But the flashes of the explosions seemed to render all the more evident, more profound, and more significant the terrible silence of the town and the fields. It was the silence of resignation, fear, and agony. The sound of our footsteps upon the muddy pavement of the suburb echoed amidst the little houses--the first houses of Ypres.

Not one building remained intact. The hurricanes of steel had battered and penetrated them all.

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At one side of the street three wounded men were waiting for succour, having remained where they had fallen a few minutes before. They were poor inhabitants who had possibly been compelled by the need of obtaining food to come forth from some cellar. They did not call for assistance; they did not say a word, they did not even complain. Pale, stunned, suffering, and mute, they merely looked. The danger seemed to impose silence; there is an unconscious desire not to be heard, not to be discovered by the invisible and monstrous will to massacre which is in the air. Under the bombardment one had the vague impression of being searched for by death.

There were three of us, and we walked in Indian file along the wall towards the famous Grande Place, which only a few days ago afforded one of the most precious and complete visions of the arts of the world.

The route was not always easy. We had to avoid the holes which had been dug by the projectiles, to clamber over heaps of ruins, extricate ourselves from the labyrinths of innumerable fallen telephone wires, and every time we heard the voice of a shell we stopped immediately and irresistibly. We ceased to move with a strange and involuntary suddenness, like the automatic figures of the Three Kings in a Flemish clock when the last stroke of the hour sounds. Then, when an explosion had taken place, our mechanism was again set in motion, and we proceeded.

A little forest of red crosses arose on the edge of the road in a glade; they marked a group of fresh graves in which lay inhabitants who had come out of their places of refuge only to meet with death. In the tragic silence any noise seemed to be enormously exaggerated.

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Long vistas of ruins were open at every side street--demolished walls, beams fallen from roofs or stretching across between one house and another, and broken doors. The stricken houses had launched their walls against the opposite buildings, and remained open, empty, unrecognisable.

Having thus traversed the Rue d'Elverdinghe, which seemed as if it would never end, we entered the famous square, and for an indefinable time remained there at the corner, nailed as it were to the ground, stupefied and moved, full of admiration and grief and reverence, incapable of expressing our feelings, overcome by the grandeur and the sadness of that which we saw, intimidated by something that was both prodigious and sacred.

We seemed to be disturbing the solemn mystery of an august end.

The life of seven centuries, which was still palpitating yesterday, was being extinguished in a solitude of horror in the pallid twilight of a winter day.

Gigantic and solemn above the mournful crowd of crumbling houses towered the monumental piles--torn, battered, devastated, but erect and still proud. Undermined by the blows of the shells, showing long cracks, breached and broken, the noble stone walls of the Halles, the Hôtel de Ville, and the Cathedral of St. Martin remained standing, indescribable in death, still stretching towards the sky their proud towers without bells and without pinnacles, hollowed at their bases as though by blows of a monstrous axe.

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We pointed to things with vague gestures, without being able to find words, and forgetting even to bend our backs when we heard the lamenting voice of the shells. None of us had ever seen Ypres, and together with the discouragement, caused by the vision of irreparable ruin, there was created in us the marvel of a revelation.

For the love and devotion of innumerable generations there had kept intact on the earth a wonderful corner of the twelfth century, and we, arriving in front of this marvel, whilst it was dissolving, surprised the dream at a moment when it was vanishing for ever.

All the rest of the world was plunged in the barbarism of the Middle Ages when the Flemish peace had Ypres for its centre. It was the wealthy and serious merchants of Ypres who created the Halles, the market of the world, the capital of business, the incomparable seat of commerce, the parliament of rulers and of people. Dante had not then been born, and already the Halles of Ypres were a century old.

The love of Ypres gave to the Halles and to the old Grande Place a perennial youth. Ypres adored these eloquent and austere witnesses to her past, which told the story of her ancient power. She protected, defended them, never permitted the weight of centuries to do them any injury. Oppressed by famine and pestilence, the people of Ypres rebelled, sacked, and burned; but the Halles remained. The people of Ghent arrived in arms, their Allies the English arrived; they besieged Ypres, entered and laid waste; but the Halles remained. The Iconoclasts sacked the town, but the Halles remained. The Duke of Alba's troops arrived and persecuted Ypres--then fallen into decay--but the Halles remained. Alexander Farnese conquered the town and abandoned it to the excesses of his soldiery; but the Halles remained. Four times in one century the French took Ypres, but the Halles remained. They remained because the most brutal troops were conquered by their age and their potent grace. There was no passion, no ferocity that could resist such imposing severity and harmony. A respectful circle was formed, and the torch and the sword were lowered before that splendour of the past.

But the butcher of ancient glories has come; the blind Teutonic cataclysm has fallen upon unarmed and tranquil Ypres, and the portentous life is now extinct. There remains nothing but the gigantic ruins, isolated walls, the corpses of monuments which preserve a sublime expression of disdainful power.

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The bells have fallen. The last hour they chimed was seven in the morning of Sunday, November 22.

At a quarter past seven the belfry received its first mortal wound.

But the first night, according to ancient usage, from the tumult of the august tower there descended upon Ypres--not yet completely deserted--the notes of the horn of the night watchman, who hour by hour sent to the four cardinal points the announcement that all was well!

All around the gabled houses are abandoned in their last agony. They are those pointed houses, dwellings of a distant epoch, which give an ineffable impression of familiar calm and patriarchal life, buildings with faces inexpressibly benevolent, paternal, sweet and grave. Through the broken windows our gaze penetrates into corners which recall certain interiors of Flemish art.

In these interiors, until yesterday, close to the windows, with their little leaded panes, the placid ladies of Ypres wove in traditional calm their arabesques of lace. Their agile and sapient fingers produced white, flowery patterns that were as light as foam. For Ghent had taken from Ypres the industry of its linens, England that of its cloths, Paris that of its damasks, but no country had had the power, the placidity, the patience, and the taste to imitate its lace. Here the old industry lived, modest and silent.

The mediæval city slept its great sleep amidst the tumult of the outside world as if the Kasteelgracht and the Majoorgracht, the wide canals which encircle it and were its gates, were enchanted and had isolated it from swift innovations.

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In the war between Germany and the Halles of Ypres, in the war between Germany and the Library of Louvain, between Germany and the cathedral of Rheims, it is not possible to remain neutral.