Part 1

THE BELGIAN FRONT

AND ITS NOTABLE FEATURES

BY CAPTAIN WILLY BRETON OF THE BELGIAN ARMY

_Translated from the French_

LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS MCMXVIII

_Price Sixpence net_

THE BELGIAN FRONT

AND ITS NOTABLE FEATURES

_The illustrations are from photographs taken by the Photographic Service of the Belgian Army Command_

THE BELGIAN FRONT

AND ITS NOTABLE FEATURES.

THE BELGIAN ARMY'S ACTIVITIES SINCE THE BATTLE OF THE YSER.

Everyone knows how severely the Belgian Army was tested in the initial stages of the campaign. Caught unawares by the war while in the midst of re-organisation, it had to struggle alone, for long weeks on end, against forces greatly superior in both numbers and equipment, suddenly hurled against it in accordance with a deliberate and carefully planned scheme of attack.

Yet the Belgian Army bravely faced the enemy, grimly determined to fulfil its duty to the last, and at once aroused enthusiasm by its heroic resistance at Liège, from August 8 onwards, to the onset of several army corps. On the 12th the troops emerged victoriously from the bloody engagements at Haelen; and not till the 18th, and then only to escape being overwhelmed by the ever-rising flood of invasion, did the Belgian Army abandon its positions at La Gette and fall back on Antwerp, the national stronghold in which would be concentrated the whole of the country's powers of opposition. Its retreat was covered by rearguards which fought fiercely, especially at Hautem Ste. Marguerite. Namur, threatened since August 19th, fell to the enemy on the 23rd, after several of its forts had been destroyed by a terrific bombardment and the complete investment of the position made further resistance impossible. By a desperate effort, some 12,000 men of the 4th Division escaped the assailant's grip and succeeded in reaching France in the first instance, and Antwerp subsequently.

The army, left to its own devices in the great fortress which it still hoped to make impregnable, continued the stubborn fight against its implacable foe, though it had suffered cruel losses and the Germans had initiated a reign of terror in the invaded provinces. It did everything possible to assist the Allies against the common enemy; first, by a sortie, made while the battle of the Somme was in progress; and then by a second vigorous and timely attack which coincided with the immortal victory of the Marne. For four days (September 9-13, 1914) the Belgian troops hurled themselves on the strong German positions facing Antwerp, drove back the masking forces in them, and prevented three whole divisions from going to the support of von Kluck's hard-pressed army. The part played by the Belgian Army in the battles of the Marne was, although an indirect one, very important and effective--as the Germans themselves have admitted.[A]

While engaged in continually harassing the enemy and also putting the fortress into a proper condition for defence, the Belgian Army was preparing, in the closing days of September, for a fresh and vigorous offensive to be directed chiefly against the left wing of the German containing forces, when it was confronted by a pressing danger which completely altered the aspect of affairs.

The Germans, having massed before Antwerp all the huge resources at their disposal, decided to attack the Belgian Army as it lay by breaching the defences of the fortress. On September 29th the first shells from the mammoth guns fell on the forts of Waelhem and Wavre-Sainte-Catherine, doing fearful damage, and from that moment the fate of Antwerp was sealed. The Belgian commander saw this clearly; and one of the things most greatly to his credit will always be that in these tragically momentous hours he was able to keep a stout heart and make the manly decision to abandon a position which he could not hold, in order to save his fighting army and continue the struggle elsewhere without respite or signs of weakening.

To cover the operations of evacuating from Antwerp all supplies that could be moved, and to ensure the army's retreat towards the coast, the Belgian troops, though exhausted and half-dead with fatigue, fought steadily for eight days under a fire of unprecedented violence.

The order for a general retreat was not given till the night of October 6-7, by which time the limit of resistance had been reached. Only one narrow avenue still lay open--between the Scheldt on the one side and the Dutch frontier and the sea on the other. Protected at first by a flanking guard (a cavalry division and two infantry divisions) and later by a rear-guard of two cavalry divisions, the field army managed by a miracle to reach the Yser, without leaving anything behind in the hands of the enemy during that epic retreat in which the exhausted troops had to cover more than 100 kilometres of congested roads.

The Yser line had not been designedly selected. But at the moment it happened to be the nearest line on which the Belgian Army could link up with the Allied forces now gradually advancing northwards along what has been termed "the sea-board route." Prodigies of valour and endurance were still needed to make the continuous front a fact and to shatter the enemy's efforts in the great battle of Flanders.

It is not my intention to recapitulate here the ensuing changes of fortune. The first act of the drama was, as everybody knows, the desperate fight which the "Belgian Army of ragamuffins"--now reduced to 80,000 men, with but 48,000 rifles and 350 guns--put up on the Yser during the last two weeks of October, against 150,000 Germans--mostly fresh troops--employing at least 500 guns of all calibres. Except for a reinforcement of 6,000 French marines, it was at first unsupported, yet it maintained an heroic resistance for eight days, fired by the passionate appeal and the example of its king. After October 23rd it had the help of the first detachments from the French division under Grossetti, and kept up the fight for another week with almost superhuman energy.

On the 31st the Germans were driven from Ramscapelle, and obliged to give ground before the inundation, whose dark, stealthy waters slowly but surely invaded the low-lying plain between the river and the Nieuport-Dixmude railway.

The battle of the Yser was then practically over. It had ended in victory, and the direct road to Dunkirk and Calais was barred to the enemy. He had suffered huge losses; but those of the Belgian Army also had been heavy enough--they were placed at 11,000 killed and missing and 9,000 wounded, a total of some 25,000 men, including those put out of action by sickness and exhaustion. The cadres had been so depleted that some regiments had only about ten officers left. Material was in a sad condition; half of the guns, rifles and machine-guns were useless, at least for the time being, and reserves of ammunition had given out.

The men looked hardly human in their ragged clothing. There were terrible gaps in their ranks. The infantry--to mention only the arm which had the hardest fighting to do--was reduced to 32,000 rifles. Yet, in spite of its weakness and its destitution--all the more pitiable now that winter was approaching--this army set about mounting guard over the last fragment of Belgian soil which its valour had preserved for the fatherland.

Three years have passed, and it still clings obstinately to its position, though the front originally defended in the battle of the Yser has been gradually lengthened. Circumstances have not hitherto allowed the Belgian Army to undertake operations on a large scale. Except for the considerable part which it played in checking the German attack on Steenstraat (April-May, 1915), when poisonous gas made its first appearance, its activities have been limited to minor operations, carried out chiefly with the object of improving its positions. These last have, however, been held with admirable courage and tenacity. Simultaneously with the tremendous effort which resulted in its glorious resurrection, the Belgian Army has done wonders along this front under peculiarly trying conditions, by dint of hard work and stoical endurance. Amid mud and water its soldiers have raised fortifications which are models of strength and ingenuity. So that the Belgian front, despite the unparalleled difficulties to be overcome, is admittedly among those whose defences have been constructed in the most solid possible manner. It is, in fact, a vast fortress, extending over many square kilometres. The visitor may be astonished when he notes the degree of perfection to which the Belgian Command has brought the organisation, properly so-called, of an army now consisting of robust men, well supplied with all kinds of armament and technical material, self-reliant and confident in its renewed strength; but he is dumbfounded when he realises what infinite labour was needed to build across these wet plains, oozing water everywhere, the impassable barrier which has arisen under the very guns of the enemy.

We propose to notice briefly here the chief features of this last enterprise, which is unknown to the world in general. Perhaps a description of it will lead to fuller appreciation of the part played by the Belgian Army since its front was immobilised on the Yser, and to a better understanding of the energy, goodwill and endurance of which it has given proof.

THE FRONT TO BE HELD--THE TASK BEFORE THE BELGIAN ARMY--GENERAL FEATURES OF THE COUNTRY TO BE ORGANISED FOR DEFENCE.

After their failure to trample upon the remnants of the Belgian Army and take Calais, the Germans had transferred their activities to the Ypres district, where they hoped that attacks pressed home with the utmost fury would enable them to effect their purpose. This second stage in the battle of Flanders ended in the enemy experiencing a second check as costly as the first. While it was in progress, the Germans, with the double object of holding the Allied forces on the north and of trying to force the Yser at that point, renewed their assaults on the Dixmude bridgehead. On November 10th, 1914, the weakened French and Belgian troops, whose muddy trenches had been blown to pieces by the bombardment, had to give ground before the enemy's pressure and fall back on to the left bank of the Yser, leaving the ruins of Dixmude in the hands of the Germans. But all attempts of the enemy to cross the river were fruitless. The Germans encountered so stubborn a resistance that they soon abandoned a project which had already cost them frightful losses.

With the approach of winter, fighting gradually died down all along the Flanders front. The two opponents were exhausted, and were obliged to reconstitute their forces and organise their respective positions. From this time onwards there was nothing to record save a few local engagements of short duration, though fierce and always entailing heavy casualties. The enemy's artillery, however, took advantage of its numerical superiority and greater weight in the Belgian sector to keep up a ceaseless and destructive fire upon our works, now in their earliest stages, and on the villages which acted as cantonments for our wearied troops. One after the other, the humble townlets of the Yser front crumbled into dust, shot to pieces by shell and devoured by fire.

It was in this devastated and desolate region, and in the depth of a severe winter, that the hastily reformed Belgian Army--as yet hardly recovered from its terrible experiences and still lacking a thousand necessaries--had to set to work to convert into a solid rampart the weak barrier on which the enemy's attacks had been broken only by prodigies of heroism.

The front entrusted to its care extended from the outskirts of Nieuport to the old Knocke fort at the confluence of the Yser with the Yperlée. Passing round the east side of Nieuport, it rejoins the railway to the south of the town and then follows the railway embankment to Dixmude, separated by the inundation from the Yser itself. To the south-west of Oud-Stuyvekenskerke the front curves inwards to meet the Yser dyke at the 16th milestone, and runs along the left bank of the river, skirting the lands which the flood waters, working steadily southwards, have converted into swamps.

As fast as the Belgian Army regained its strength the front was extended further, along the Yperlée and the Ypres canal, to the north of Steenstraat in the first instance, and then to Boesinghe. So it is really the Belgian Army which has definitely organised the whole front up to the latter place, over a distance of at least 31 kilometres.

If one considers only the portion which had to be defended by the army in the early stages--that between the sea and Fort Knocke--it is clear that a heavy strain was put upon the weak effectives left in being after the battle of the Yser--a strain all the greater because the gaps in the ranks could be filled but slowly and with great difficulty.

The inundations certainly protected a large part of the front and made the enemy's attacks less formidable. But the protection might be nullified by frost. A great deal of work was, therefore, needed to enable the area of the inundation to be regulated at will, to prevent the water invading our own trenches, and to make it impossible for the enemy to use the inundation against us.

It would be a serious mistake to assume that this sheet of water formed an impassable obstacle at all points. Where it seemed to give the greatest security--between the Nieuport-Dixmude railway and the Yser--the roads and tracks, which are causeways in all weathers, and the small risings in the ground near the buildings and farms scattered about the country, stood out of the great lagoon and offered chances of getting across, or formed islands that might usefully be occupied.

From the first Belgians and Germans had fought for the possession of these points, in order to cover their main positions and prevent access to them by the creation of advanced posts in the very heart of the floods. Further to the south, the water had spared the Dixmude region, where the ground rises slightly. At this place the two foes lay facing one another, separated only by the width of the Yser--some 15 to 20 yards. Just as it was necessary to organise a bridgehead able to resist any attack at Nieuport--where the locks are--so at Dixmude, where we were in close contact with the enemy, we had to construct a bastion of the strongest possible kind, since this was a vital spot in the Belgian line, and the enemy's repeated attempts upon it showed clearly enough how extremely important he considered its possession to be.

Still further south, the Belgian front clung to the western bank of the canal formed by the Yser and Yperlée, while the enemy occupied the other, keeping as close to it as he could and standing off only when compelled to do so by the floods.

To sum up: though the main positions were not very near together, the advanced posts of both sides threatened each other, in some instances at point-blank range. The Germans, who were well aware of the weakness of the Belgian Army, would not have failed to profit by the least negligence on our part, nor to try for an easy success at any weak point discovered in our lines. But no chance of the kind was given them.

* * * * * *

The system of defence created by the Belgian Army along the front, as briefly described above, served a double purpose.

First, it gave support to the left flank of the Allied forces along the western front, and at this end barred the most southerly roads to Dunkirk and Calais.

Secondly, it preserved unviolated for Belgium the last fragment of her national soil--an object of both political and military importance.

While the first shows with sufficient clearness the importance of the part undertaken by the Belgian Army, the latter explains even more fully the great value which that army sets upon the positions entrusted to its valour. It realises in full the seriousness of its task, for by relieving the Allies of all anxiety concerning the most northerly part of their front, it gives them the necessary freedom of action for dealing the enemy, in selected sectors, those heavy blows which have already repeatedly shaken the might of Germany.

But how the Belgian soldiers' readiness to do their part without flinching stiffened into a firm resolve when they reflected that, in doing it, they were also defending against the enemy's greed the last few square miles of Belgian territory, in which the air they breathed was still free, in which lived their king! What a holy enthusiasm was kindled in their hearts by the prospect of one day leaping from their trenches to drive out the tyrannical and cruel oppressor!

These are the noble feelings whence spring the moral strength and stout-heartedness of our troops--qualities which have enabled them to endure without a murmur severe privations, the cruel separation from all they hold most dear, the long sojourn in their comfortless trenches, amid water and mud and ruins that become more and more depressing--heart-breaking surroundings among which they will have to pass yet a fourth winter, now close at hand.

* * * * * *

To give a better idea of the work imposed on the Belgian Army it will be convenient to summarise what, in the present war, is implied by organising the defences of a sector. The power of modern artillery and explosives, which are able to destroy the most massive fortifications, renders it impossible to rest content with a single position, however strong it may be. Hence the absolute necessity for extending the state of defence to a _deep zone_ and for creating _several successive positions_. This is the only way of localising a temporary success, such as the enemy may win at any time if he take the necessary steps and be willing to pay a heavy price for it. Moreover, every position must itself consist of a series of defensive lines, a short distance apart, each covered by its own subsidiary defences.

These conditions are all the more difficult to fulfil when the defences are rendered less permanent by the nature of the ground, as is the case on the Belgian front, where one cannot burrow into soil which is practically at sea level. It thus comes about that--to take an example--the organised zone, 10 to 12 kilometres deep, between the two natural defensive lines of the Yser and the Loo canal, is nothing more than an unbroken series of organised lines, placing as many successive obstacles in the path of an assailant who may have succeeded in breaking through at any point.

The positions nearest to the enemy are necessarily continuous; and the lie of each is influenced not merely by the terrain but still more by the arbitrary direction of the contact lines of the two opponents. Each line, therefore, follows a twisting course. More or less straight stretches are succeeded by salients and re-entrant angles which take the most varied forms. The defences embrace farms and other premises and small woods, all converted into _points d'appui_. Where such are lacking at important points, they must be created artificially.

Communication trenches, allowing movement out of sight of the enemy, connect the various positions, and the successive lines of a position, with one another. Shelters have to be constructed everywhere--they cannot be built too strong, to protect the men as much as possible from bombardment and from the weather during their long spells on guard in the trenches. Special emplacements must be most carefully prepared for machine-guns, bomb-throwers and trench-mortars, which play a part too important to need special comment.

The whole zone is dotted over at various distances from the enemy with batteries, or emplacements for batteries, of all calibres. You will understand that their construction represents a vast amount of hard and exact work, and that only with the greatest difficulty can they be more or less satisfactorily hidden from the enemy's direct or aerial observation in a plain that is practically bare and commanded everywhere by the Clercken heights.

The magnitude of the movements of troops and material, as well as the need for ensuring rapid transfer in all directions, have compelled the creation of all means of communication to alleviate the existing shortage--roads, tracks and railways of standard or narrow gauge. The execution of such work is attended by great difficulty where the soft nature of the soil gives an unreliable foundation. You may imagine also how complicated the task is when foot-bridges, in many cases several hundred yards long, have to be carried right across the floods in full view of the enemy, to give access to the most advanced positions. In conclusion, we may mention among the most important undertakings the vast network of telegraph and telephone wires, with which the whole of the occupied zone has to be covered in order to inter-connect the numberless centres and keep them in touch with the posts close to the enemy lines.

* * * * * *

Topographically, the sector which the Belgian Army has had to organise and defend is certainly one of the worst. This will be denied neither by the British units which this year occupied the Nieuport district nor by the French units linked up with the Belgians near Boesinghe and Steenstraat. Several descriptions have been written of the peculiar appearance presented by this low-lying, perfectly flat, region between the Franco-Belgian frontier, the sea coast and the Yser, and known as the "Veurne-Ambacht." It is a monotonous plain of alluvial soil, which centuries of toil have slowly won from the waters. As far as the eye can see stretch water-meadows, which serve as pasturage for large numbers of cattle. That they may be flooded during the winter and drained again later in the year, these water-meadows are surrounded by irrigation ditches three to four yards wide--"vaarten" or "grachten," as they are called locally.

A glance at the Staff map reveals so great a number of these ditches that the district appears to be nothing more than a huge marsh. As a matter of fact, the country is subdivided into innumerable lots by this inextricable tangle of ditches, and looks like a huge fantastic chess-board. With the approach of winter the "vaarten" become brimful of water; and at any time of the year a short spell of rain makes them overflow and transform the ground into a morass.

During the happy times of peace the only shelter to be found on the plain was that of the villages or hamlets, their houses as a rule grouped round a slated steeple, and of the isolated farms whose red roofs relieved the monotony of the landscape with bright splashes of colour. Apart from Nieuport and Dixmude it could boast but one town of any importance--Furnes the dismal, which German shells soon reduced to deserted ruins.

In this essentially agricultural country, boasting not a single manufacturing industry, a people of simple tastes, strongly attached to the fruitful soil which supplied most of their wants, lived a peaceful, sober life, into which, at regular intervals, the village fairs introduced an element of rude and boisterous gaiety. Property here has always been much subdivided, and large farms are quite the exception. So that in Belgium, which as a whole is so rich and thickly-populated, "Veurne-Ambacht" has always been regarded as a district that would afford an army the minimum of billeting facilities and of the various supplies required.

Communications, too, are few and far between. Except for the Nieuport-Dixmude railway--which follows the same course as our main positions--and a few very second-rate light railways, there is but one line, that connecting Dixmude and Furnes with Dunkirk; and it is only a single line without depôts or sidings.