British Monitors shelling German Trenches.
Note the aeroplane and the balloon directing the fire of the monitors' guns.
On the evening of 17th October the three monitors left Dover under the command of Admiral Hood, and arrived off the Flemish coast just as the German attack began. An old cruiser, a battleship, a gunboat, and several destroyers, aided by French warships, also bombarded the coast from outside the shoals. Von Beseler endeavoured to bring his big guns to bear on them, but his artillery was completely outranged, and several of his batteries were destroyed. Every attempt to beat off the monitors failed. The German submarines were ineffective because they could not manoeuvre in shallow water, and their torpedoes, being set to a greater depth than the draught of the monitors, passed harmlessly beneath their hulls.
The guns of the monitors swept the coast for six miles inland, their fire, which proved very accurate and deadly, being directed by naval balloons, aeroplanes, and signals from the shore. The Germans could not retaliate; nor could their troops easily protect themselves in trenches, for if they faced the sea they could be enfiladed from the canal, and if they faced the canal they could be enfiladed from the sea. For ten days the big guns of the monitors blazed across the sandhills. One vessel fired a thousand shells in a single day. Heavy batteries were established by the Germans at Ostend on the 24th, but they were at once bombarded, much to the discomfort of the German officers who had taken up their quarters in the big hotels on the sea front. By the end of the month the shore batteries ceased to fire, but before that time the Germans had been forced to give up their attempt to reach Calais by a march along the shore.
During this land and sea warfare the Belgians and French struggled desperately to hold the line of the river Yser. Over and over again they beat back massed attacks of the enemy. There were frenzied hand-to-hand combats and thousands of men wrestled and died on the bridges, or were drowned in the waters beneath. On Friday, 23rd October, a body of Germans succeeded in crossing the river close to Nieuport, and in forcing their way to the railway line near Ramscappelle. The Belgians, however, drove them back to their old position on the eastern bank, and the carnage was terrible. Next day some five thousand Germans managed to push across the river at the point where the road from Bruges to Pervyse is carried over the stream. On Sunday, the 25th, more Germans crossed, and the line of the Yser seemed to have been won. But as they tried to deploy from their bridgeheads the French and Belgians, entrenched in the miry fields, which are crossed and recrossed by water courses, met them with such stubborn courage that they could make but little headway. Every yard was fiercely contested, and the German loss was terribly heavy. By the 28th the Allies had been beaten back almost to the railway embankment. Then, under the eye of the Emperor himself, the Würtembergers launched a terrific attack.
From the higher ground near Nieuport the Germans advanced in dense masses, singing patriotic songs. The defenders fell back, and at three in the afternoon, when the Kaiser saw victory almost within his grasp, they played their last card. Under cover of British naval guns, the Belgians at high tide had been hard at work near Nieuport damming the lower reaches of the canal. The brimming waters of the Yser, swollen by the recent heavy rains, now almost overtopped its banks. At the critical moment some of the sluices were opened, and the Belgian guns broke down the banks at several places. Slowly the water spread over the flat meadows on the left bank of the canal in great shallow lagoons. The culverts and bridges beneath the railway embankment had been dammed up so as to prevent the flood from extending westwards.
Soon the Germans between the embankment and the canal found themselves a foot deep in water; their guns sank in the mud, and whole battalions were bogged. Only on a few patches of higher ground could they maintain a dry foothold. Nevertheless they pushed on through the rising waters, in the hope of capturing Ramscappelle and seizing the railway embankment before the waters could stay them. The Emperor himself called for volunteers, and two Würtemberg brigades, composed of some of the best fighting men in the German Empire, were chosen to carry the village and win undying glory.
The Würtembergers' Attack on Ramscappelle. By permission of The Sphere.
On the 30th the great attempt was made. The Würtembergers, carrying roughly-hewn platforms, floundered through the water, and flung the "table tops" across the wider channels, thus forming bridges. While so doing, they were shot down by hundreds, but still they pressed on. Numbers told; Ramscappelle was partly occupied, and the railway line was seized. Next day French, Senegalese, and Belgians fell upon them furiously. The dismounted Bengal Lancers, who had been sent to the help of the Belgians, now exhausted by fourteen hours' continuous fighting, charged with their lances and took house after house, smashing in doors and windows to get at the German marines, who had been called up from Hamburg to take part in the struggle. In vain did the German officers, with threats and blows and pistol shots, try to prevent their men from retreating and surrendering. It is said that some twelve guns and over a thousand prisoners were taken in this furious counter-attack. Before long the Allies were over the railway embankment, and the German host was hurled back into the lagoons. The "seventy-fives" came up at a gallop, rifles and machine guns cracked incessantly, and soon the waters were dotted with fallen Germans.
The flood through which the Würtembergers had waded was but the advance guard of a mighty deluge that was now about to overwhelm the whole district. Every sluice in this region of stream and canal was opened, and the brown flood spread over the land like the "bore" in a narrow estuary. Men and horses were swept from their feet and swallowed up in the seething waters; others sank to rise no more in the deep mud; field guns disappeared in the ooze, and all the while the pitiless guns of the Allies poured shot and shell on the drowning invaders. Thousands fell, but some escaped, while others struggled to dry ground, only to be taken prisoners. The attack had hopelessly failed, and the Emperor, who had been watching the struggle through his field glasses, shut them up and turned away. Once more he had been foiled at the very moment when victory seemed to be beckoning him.
On 7th November a frenzied attack was begun on Dixmude, which, as you know, was held by Ronarc'h's Bretons. From the 16th of October to the 10th of November they were fiercely but unsuccessfully assailed by three corps of the Duke of Würtemberg's army. "You have to sacrifice yourselves," said Ronarc'h to his men, "to save our left wing. Try to hold out four days." They held out for a fortnight.
On the night of the 23rd and in the early morning of the 24th no fewer than fourteen separate attacks were made upon them, but every one failed. For most of the time the marines fought in trenches up to their waists in water, and, as General Joffre told them, they were in their own element. One night the Germans, driving some captured marines before them, crept silently towards the French lines. One of the prisoners shouted a warning, but immediately paid for his loyalty with his life. The wearied defenders, hearing the shout, sprang to arms and beat off the attack.
On 10th November the Germans succeeded in capturing the broken walls and torn streets of what had once been the prosperous village of Dixmude. This success, however, had come too late. Around Ypres, as we shall learn in later pages, the flower of the German armies had everywhere been driven back from the Allied lines. All the doors to the coast were now locked, bolted, and barred. Nevertheless, fierce but futile struggles continued on the Yser until early in December, when their fury abated.
