VI. THE CAPTURE OF BEERST
Save for an unimportant suburb beyond the Handzaeme Canal, Dixmude lies entirely on the right bank of the Yser. Nevertheless, our general line of defence on October 16, both up and down stream, went beyond the line traced by the course of the river. From Saint-Jacques-Cappelle to the North Sea, by way of Beerst, Keyem, Leke, Saint-Pierre, etc., little rural settlements but yesterday unknown, drowsing in the gentle Flemish calm, the arc of the circle it described followed, almost throughout its course as far as Slype, the roadside light railway from Ypres to Ostend. The Fusiliers flanked this front from Saint-Jacques to the confluence of the Vliet. The 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th Belgian Divisions occupied the rest of the horse-shoe, but the effectives of these reduced divisions had not been made up; some of the regiments had been reduced from 6,000 to 2,000 men; whole companies had melted away. The remnants continued to stand their ground with fine courage. Until when? They had been asked, like our Fusiliers, to hold out for four days, and it was not until October 23, at the end of nine days, that General Grossetti and his reinforcements arrived.[26]
The Admiral had divided the defence of Dixmude into two sectors, cut by the road of Caeskerke; the north sector was entrusted to the 1st Regiment, under Commander Delage, the south to the 2nd Regiment, under Commander Varney. His Command Post he established at Caeskerke station, at the junction of the lines of Furnes and Nieuport, keeping only a battalion of the 2nd Regiment at his own disposal. Of the two batteries of the Belgian group, one was sent to the south of the second level crossing of the Furnes railway, the other to the north of Caeskerke. A telephone line connected them with the great flour factory of Dixmude, at the head of the High Bridge. A platform of reinforced cement belonging to this factory provided us with an excellent observatory. The thickness of this mass of concrete, as costly as it was incongruous with the importance of the establishment, but very well adapted for heavy guns, which would command the whole valley of the Yser, did not fail to suggest certain reflections. This was perhaps one of the few instances in which ante-bellum preparations had turned against their authors. The machine-gun company was stationed at the intersection of the roads to Pervyse and Oudecappelle; in the trenches of the Yser we had mainly Belgian troops; finally, to the south, debouching from the forest of Houthulst with four divisions of cavalry, General de Mitry threw out a bold advance post towards Clercken, and relieved us a little on that side, although he was unable to control the German offensive, which began in force at 4 p.m.[27]
THE BRIDGE AND FLOUR FACTORY
(From a picture by M. Léon Cassel)
The enemy had begun in his customary manner by preparing the ground with his artillery, which from the hollow where it was posted, near Eessen, to the east of Dixmude, rained projectiles upon us from 10 and 15-centimetre guns. Scarcely had the last smoke clouds of the German batteries lifted, when the infantry advanced to the attack. The action was very hot, and was prolonged throughout the night and the morning of the 17th, with violent alternations of advance and retreat. The enemy, anxious to deal a decisive blow, came on in compact masses, in which our machine-guns and rifle fire tore bloody breaches. These mobile bastions wavered for a few seconds, filled up the breaches, and then returned to the charge in the same close formation as before. No network of barbed wire protected the approach to our trenches; most of them had neither roofs nor parapets. In these haphazard defences, successful resistance depended solely on the intrepidity of the men and the skill of the commander. Certain "elements" were taken, retaken, lost, and retaken again. But as a whole our line held; the enemy failed to break through it. At dawn, discouraged, he suspended his attack, but, like a dog who makes off growling, he never ceased shelling us till 11 a.m. "After this," notes Fusilier B., "all noise ceased. Dixmude has not suffered much. The damage caused by the shells is insignificant." True, the enemy had not yet received his heavy artillery.
We profited by the respite granted us to repair the trenches of the outskirts, which were somewhat damaged, and begin the organisation of the others. This work, indeed, was resumed whenever there was a lull, but it was carried on chiefly at night, and in the morning, from 5 to 9 o'clock, until the mists lifted. At this hour and the coming of light the German batteries generally awoke. We had not enough guns to reply efficaciously to the enemy. The brigade was therefore greatly rejoiced by the reinforcements it received during the day of the 17th: five batteries of the 3rd Regiment of Belgian Artillery (Colonel de Weeschouwer), which, added to the Pontus group, gave the defenders of Dixmude the respectable total of 72 guns. Unhappily their range was not very great, and the metal of which they were made was not strong enough to bear the strain of our .75 shells. Such as they were, however, our front was in much better case when they had been distributed from Caeskerke to Saint-Jacques-Cappelle. The Admiral, who wished to direct their operations himself, had these batteries connected by telephone with his quarters; a battle is directed from a study-table nowadays. Nevertheless, he gave a standing order that the batteries were to open fire instantly, whether by day or night, on the approaches to Dixmude, whenever rifle fire or the sound of machine-guns indicated that an infantry attack threatened our trenches.
The check received on October 16 had perhaps made the enemy more cautious. He had allowed us breathing time in the afternoon of the 17th, and he gave us a quiet day on Sunday, the 18th. Only two or three cavalry patrols were reported near Dixmude, and these were rapidly dispersed by a few salvoes. That day, too, our Fusiliers had a pleasant surprise. A tall, silent officer, with serious eyes, in a closely buttoned black dolman, came to visit the trenches of the Yser with the Admiral. His inspection seemed satisfactory to him. He pressed the Admiral's hand, and when he had regained the river bank, he paused a moment, gazing at the triangle of marshes, all that remained to him of his kingdom. It was Albert I.[28]
Other news from the front arrived, and gave us confidence. In spite of the fall of Lille, our Armies of the North had taken the offensive with marked success from Roye to the Lys. Orders had come from the English headquarters to the 1st Corps to concentrate at Ypres, whence it was to attempt to advance towards Bruges.[29] This strategic movement had even been initiated, and the French cavalry which had just seized Clercken might be considered the advance guard of Sir Douglas Haig's corps. It asked the Admiral to support it in flank, to enable it to push on to Zarren and Thourout. He at once sent forward Commander de Kerros with a battalion of the 1st Regiment and two Belgian armoured cars towards Eessen.[30] The road was free; it was strewn with the carcases of dead horses, and even with dead soldiers, as if there had been a precipitate retreat. The enemy seemed to have evaporated. But the church of Eessen, which he had turned into a stable, just as afterwards he turned the church of Vladsloo into a cesspool, with the immemorial Teuton taste for sacrilege, showed evidences of his recent passage. These tracks of the beast did not, however, tell us which way he had gone. Several roads lay open to him. It seemed most probable that, hearing of the movement of the French cavalry, he was retiring upon Bruges by way of Wercken or Vladsloo. Taking his chance, Commander de Kerros had installed himself to await the morning, while two Turco regiments,[31] which had been placed at the Admiral's disposal and ensured his liaison with the main body operating on Thourout, set out as foragers towards Bovekerke and the woods of Couckelaere. Morning dawned, and the execution of the French plan seemed about to be realised normally, when a terrible thrust by the enemy at a wholly unexpected point suddenly upset all calculations.
Cl. Meurisse
BELGIAN ARMOURED CAR RECONNOITRING IN THE PLAIN OF DIXMUDE
In reality the Germans had not retreated at all, or rather they had only retired to come into touch again under more favourable conditions. Knowing the sort of reception that awaited them at Dixmude, they had decided to try another point on the front, in the hope that "the little Belgians" would be easier to deal with than the "young ladies with red pompons." About 9 o'clock on the morning of the 19th they threw themselves in three simultaneous leaps, at Leke, Keyem, and Beerst, upon the thin Belgian line, which staggered under the shock. The question was whether we should be able to reinforce it in time. If it were broken, the road would lie open to the Yser, the Yser would perhaps be seized, and Dixmude taken in the rear. The Admiral did not hesitate; the whole brigade should go if necessary. He sent forward two of his reserve battalions by forced marches on the road to Ostend, another, under Commander Mauros, towards Vladsloo and Hoograde in flank. The artillery supported the movement, which began at 10 o'clock. But we did not know whether Keyem and Beerst were in the hands of the Belgians or of the Germans, and in this uncertainty we dared not open fire upon them. The two villages were wrapped in ominous silence. Commander Jeanniot and Commander Pugliesi-Conti, who were marching upon Keyem with the first and second battalions of the 2nd Regiment, made their arrangements accordingly. While the sixth company of the second battalion advanced towards Keyem, with Lieutenant Pertus, the fifth company, under Lieutenant de Maussion de Candé, received orders to make for Beerst. De Maussion put his company into line of sections in fours. On approaching the village he was received by a salvo of machine-guns. The Germans were entrenched in the houses and the church, whence they poured a withering fire upon our troops. The attack was made peculiarly difficult by the nature of the ground, which was completely flat, and afforded no cover save the irrigation ditches and a few leafless hedges; the only possible method of advance was crawling. We lost a good many men in this deploying manœuvre, so ill adapted to the impulsive nature of sailors; every head that was raised became a target. De Maussion, who had stood up to inspect the enemy's position, was struck down. Every moment one of our men rolled over among the beetroots. Would the charge never sound? It would, but not yet. Pertus fell first, his leg shattered at the moment when he was carrying a group of farms close to Keyem; Lieutenant Hébert was sent with the eighth company to support him. But the ditches on the road were already occupied by the men of the first battalion, and Hébert had to cut across fields to avoid this encumbered road. The fire directed against us had become very hot. It took us in flank, and we ran the risk of being wiped out before we had reached our objective. The Hébert company accordingly swerved to the right, and marched to the edge of the woods and the houses situated between Beerst and Keyem, where the enemy's artillery and infantry seemed to be posted.[32] Hébert took up a position in a farm with the third section; Second-Lieutenant de Blois and Boatswain Fossey with the first and second sections deployed to act as marksmen, facing the wood. Creeping from hedge to hedge and from watergand to watergand, supported by Lieutenant de Roncy's machine-guns, they arrived to within 500 metres of the enemy's position in connection with Commander Jeanniot, who had arrived at the same point on the left by a similar manœuvre.
"I think this is our moment," said the commander.
"Forward!" cried De Blois to his men.
Fossey gave the same order; the two sections sprang out of their temporary trenches under a hail of bullets. Fossey was killed, De Blois severely wounded in the head and leg.[33] The rest of the sections found their way to the farm where Hébert was making an attempt to check the enemy's counter-attack by fire from the loopholes that had been stopped up by the former occupants of the upper storeys, but which he had succeeded in opening. His exertions were cut short by an invisible battery, which broke down the walls, wounded his two lieutenants, and obliged him to fall back. He himself was wounded twice as he crept through the ditches.[34] Second-Lieutenant de Réau, who came out of cover to advance, had his shoulder shattered. The casualties in the Jeanniot battalion, whose sections continued the attack, leaving 110 of their number on the field, soon became so serious that they had to be brought back to the rear. It was then that the "Colonel" of the 2nd Regiment, rallying the remnants of the companies engaged, and continuing to cover them towards Keyem, massed his forces, put himself at their head, and, after crawling up to within two hundred yards of the position, hurled himself upon Beerst. His example electrified his men. This time they would have allowed themselves to be cut to pieces sooner than give way. Some of them had thrown off their great-coats that they might move more freely. The old corsair blood was boiling in their veins. It was no longer a charge, but a boarding of the enemy's ships, and, as in the heroic days, the first who sprang upon the deck, pistols in hand and sword between teeth, was the chief. The whole crew rushed after the "Colonel" of the 2nd Regiment, who had become Commander Varney again. But as soon as one house was captured the next had to be taken by assault. Nevertheless, the attack progressed. To keep it in heart, the Admiral sent forward the second battalion of the 1st Regiment, under Commander Kerros, to support it, and withdrew the sorely tried Jeanniot battalion to Dixmude. The Mauros battalion debouched simultaneously from Vladsloo, whence it had dislodged the enemy, with the help of the Belgian Brigade and their armoured cars; the 5th Allied Division prolonged the fighting line to the right and in the rear. The effects of this successful tactical arrangement were at once felt: the enemy, who had brought his artillery into action, was groping about in search of the guns we had brought along to the north of Dixmude; at 5 o'clock in the afternoon we were in possession of Beerst. The bayonets were able to take a rest; they had done yeoman's service; in the streets and in the farmyards, the ground was paved with corpses. But night was falling. The Admiral, who had come up to the firing line, ordered Commander Varney to put the approaches to the village into a state of defence at once in view of a possible offensive return of the enemy. The men obeyed gaily; they were still in the full flush of their costly victory.[35] They had scarcely begun to wield their picks, when a counter-order came from Belgian Headquarters: we were to fall back upon our former positions! At 11 o'clock that night the brigade returned to its quarters at Caeskerke and Saint-Jacques-Cappelle. The horizon was aflame behind it: Hoograde, Beerst, and Vladsloo had been re-occupied by the enemy, who were "setting the red cock up" on the roofs (i.e., firing them).
FOOTNOTES:
[26] The Belgian detachments which co-operated with us in the defence of Dixmude showed themselves no whit inferior to those of the Lower and the Middle Yser, and if we were writing a general account of the operations, and not a chapter in the history of the Naval Brigade, the most elementary justice would require us to give these troops their due for the part they took in the defence. This was so admirable, that the Generalissimo commissioned General Foch to present General Meiser, whose brigade had specially distinguished itself at Dixmude, with the cravat of Commander of the Legion of Honour, while two of the colours of this brigade, the 11th and the 12th, were decorated by the King and authorised to inscribe the glorious name of the town on their folds. The few hundred Senegalese who reinforced the Fusiliers towards the end also gave us very active and brilliant support, on which, for similar reasons, we have not insisted in our narrative.
[27] It was General de Mitry's corps which guarded the Yser towards Loo. With magnificent audacity, General d'Urbal had thrown it upon the forest of Houthulst before he had all his forces in hand. Here it was to dislodge the Germans, and then march upon Thourout and Roulers while Sir Henry Rawlinson marched upon Menin.
[28] "He's a model king: I saw him visiting the trenches; he's a man, if you like." (Letter of a sailor, A. C., October 30.)
[29] Cf. Sir John French's report. As is well known, this movement, which began on October 21, was stopped on the line Zonnebeke-Saint-Julien-Langermack-Bixschoote.
[30] Commander de Kerros had made an offensive reconnaissance in this direction the day before.
[31] Under Colonel du Jonchay. Abd-el-Kader's grandson was with them.
[32] The woods in question were the Praetbosch.
[33] Under the pseudonym of D'Avesnes, the Comte de Blois has published some notes of travel, various stories, and a naval novel, La Vocation, remarkable for their delicate sentiment and subtlety of analysis. It is bare justice to record here the gallantry of Quartermaster Echivant, who carried his wounded officer off to the rear under a heavy fire.
[34] "We were able to get away by creeping through the ditches, but picked marksmen concealed in the trees decimated us. Suddenly my left arm began to hurt me horribly. A bullet had torn the muscles from elbow to wrist. A second bullet, aimed at my heart, went through a note-block and a war manual, and was stopped by my pocket-book. I fell. My men carried me off under fire. The last thing I remember seeing was a captive balloon which was hovering over the woods directing the fire of the enemy's battery." (R. Kimley, op. cit.) M. Hébert is the famous inventor of the system of naval athletics which bears his name.
[35] "Monday, October 19, bayonet attack on Beerst. Several officers killed and wounded." (Note-book of Second-Lieutenant X.) "We have been fighting for five days," wrote Second-Lieutenant Gautier on October 22. "The day before yesterday we resumed the offensive. It was a bit stiff. Don't be too much upset by the casualty lists. I should not have said anything about them, but as you will see them in the papers, I would rather tell you of them myself. Le Douget, who was in the training companies at Lorient, was killed at Ghent; De Maussion was killed the day before yesterday; Hébert, Pertus, and De Mons are wounded." In his note-book, under date of the 18th, Gautier adds the names of Second-Lieutenants de Blois and de Roussille as among the wounded. He gives some interesting details of the affair itself. A little incident reported by the Abbé Le H. bears witness to the heroism and self-sacrifice of the men. "It was at Beerst. A quartermaster had his leg broken by a bullet in the temporary trench he was occupying with his company. He went on fighting. His comrades were obliged to fall back under a tremendous fire. He refused to be carried away, and crawled into a ditch, where he killed three Germans who came creeping up to take him prisoner. Fortunately, a young Marine, who had been trained by him at Lorient, could not make up his mind to abandon the quartermaster. By dint of extraordinary efforts, he managed to reach him and succeeded in dragging him some three hundred yards to a house, where he left him under shelter. As he left this house he himself was wounded in the arm by a bullet. Night was falling. He came to the dressing-station to have his wound attended to. I was there. He told me his story with such infectious emotion that I proposed he should act as guide to two stretcher-bearers and myself for the purpose of bringing in the quartermaster. Without a moment's hesitation, he set out in front of us, heedless of the very real danger. After a difficult pilgrimage over open ground swept by the German machine-guns, we were lucky enough to find the quartermaster and to bring him back into our lines. I notified the conduct of these two brave fellows to the commanding officer that same evening, and I hope they received the reward they deserved."