The fighting posts and shelters established after the battle of the Yser, in the ruins of the small buildings along the embankment, saw little by little their walls relined with a strong interior casing of concrete, and their lost roofs, replaced by thick concrete layers also. The house of the Joconde (so called, because of the good old proprietress, Mieke Bœuf, who during long weeks of trench warfare still occupied it and who became quite legendary with our soldiers), served as a lodging to the Commander of the company at the bridge-head, till a better appropriated shelter was built. It was occupied after, by the men of the Royal engineers, who were charged to keep in good order, the foot bridges giving access to the bridge-head.
The next house to the one of the Joconde’s served as C. P. to the major on guard.
After the organization of the bridge-head (see notice no 20), an allround plan fortifying the sector was elaborated. They foresaw the construction of little forts or redoubts with a distance of 600 meters between each and utilizing the embankment as a parapet and the Yser as obstacle.
It was with the redoubts Albert and Elisabeth that they began. They were finished in December 1915. The reason of their existence, was to protect the bridge-head against enfilading fire; but that was not the only part they played. These two redoubts completed and formed with the part of the embankment which bound them together a kind of curtain which had to hold good, whatever happened.
The system and assemblage of fires which shot out from the numerous loop holes and “embrasures” of their shelters for machine-guns and rifles gave them an enormous capacity of resistance.
The redoubts Albert and Elisabeth were the work of the engineers of 2d army division.
20.—The Bridge-Head at kilometer 19.500 (Right Bank).
When the Belgian front was stabilized (November 1914), it was in part covered by floods, before which our posts soon became powerful main-guards.
Two well distinctive floods had been spread; the first during the battle of the Yser, was extended between the river and the railway line Nieuport-Dixmude having the paved road Oostkerke kilometer 16 of the Yser as Southern limit; the second, subsequent to the fall of Dixmude was created at the request of the French troops from the 14th of November 1914. All the land situated at the East of the Yser, between the Houtensluisvaart and the road embankment of Knocke to Drie Grachten was flooded (this was realised, thanks to the great difference of water level of the two river-banks. The one on the right bank being inferior to the one on the left).
Between the kilometer 16 of the Yser and Houtensluisvaart the obstacle of water did not exist. The enemy, at Dixmude occupied the right bank of the Yser, which alone separated the adversary lines. At the South of the railway line of Dixmude to Zarren, the German positions followed a course almost parallel to the road of Woumen, comprising the strongly organized points such as the cemetery of Dixmude, the Castle of kilometer 19 and several farms. Our troops continued to follow the left bank of the river.