Ramscappelle was the only point West of the Nieuport-Dixmude railway line that ever was trod on by the invader. After the taking of St-Georges on October 24th 1914, the foe in order to widen his success rushed on the 26th for the Noordvaart and compelled our troops after a night of fierce struggle to withdraw on the railway track, on which they clung without much difficulty up to the 29th of October.
During the evening of the 29th, two attempts of the enemy against the railway line facing Ramscappelle failed. The 30th, at 4.45 a. m. a new trial was again pinned down. And finally round 5.30 a. m. after a terrific artillery preparation, a last and more powerful attack than the previous ones, forced the resistance at a point South of the halt of Ramscappelle, the enemy linked himself on the railway line which he now enfilades and thus proceeding northward, reached the village.
The 5th and 6th line Regiments, which had battled with the finest determination, withdrew and took a strong position at the Koolhofbrug and Jockveld farm from whither they managed to prevent the enemy to emerge from out the village, thus stemming the rush for good and all.
Lieutenant General Dossin, in command of the 2d Army Division, ordered the counter-strike to be organized at once. Accordingly at the beginning of the afternoon a force composed of four French Battalions and five Belgian ones plus a machine-gun company, and, with in support two Belgian and two French battalions, went slowly forward, encircled the village altogether northward, westward and southward. When that move had been completed, the assault was launched; it was then 7 o’clock p. m.
The group of houses on the southern side of the wind mill and the wind mill itself were carried out at the first jump, thanks to the fighting spirit of the men and also to the efficient artillery fire of No 26th Belgian Field Battery, which, in spite of a hurricane of machine-gun bullets had been brought as far forward as the Pelican bridge.
The fighting ground being of a very close nature permitted but a very slow progression of the wings. But nothing daunted, the attack however reached the nearer outskirts of the village, bar the eastern side of the brook, called Ramscapelleleed excepted.
The night was spent in carrying out violent musketry fire, and to goad the enemy several reconnaissances were pushed in the village while a section of a French and Belgian bridging company was erecting a foot bridge on the Ramscappelleleed. The artillery kept hammering the enemy’s defences into ruins.
At dawn of the 31th of October, the german resistance weakened and a general attack carries the village up bringing in one jump the assaulting troops right up the railway line, scattering the remaining defenders and pushing them back toward the river Yser.
The german fled, leaving their dead and wounded behind them, they also abandoned in the inundation the two famous “Minenwerfer”, which only seven days ago had annihilated a whole Belgian battalion, which was defending the Yser crossing at the Union Bridge.
During the whole war, the Nieuport-Dixmude railway line formed in the “Ramscappelle sector”, the main line of resistance. When the water had retired a little, the sector was guarded by two main-guards i. e. Rijkenhoek and Beverdijk, particularly famous as kick off points for the numerous attacks and raids of our troops against the Violette and Terstille farms.