Brave Belgians

by Camille Buffin

All this was intermittent at first, but it increased until it became incessant. The machine-guns continued all the time. A terrified soldier came in and informed us that there was an attack on the town. All night we heard the tumult of the fight, the roaring of the cannon, the whizzing of balls, and a wild clamour.

October 21st. At daybreak, the firing diminished and the Germans were falling back. Our troops had been superb and had repelled three assaults. A band of prisoners passed by. Nearly all of them were young and had come from Brussels. They had not fought before. According to them, many of their officers had been killed the previous day. They had been replaced by officers they did not know, taken from the central army.

A German officer with dum-dum balls was arrested. When he was questioned, he declared that these balls did not belong to him. As he became arrogant, he was made to turn round. He took advantage of the first moment of inattention for trying to escape. He was shot down at a distance of 150 metres. His revolver was loaded with these same dum-dum balls, and he was buried at once. We then fired on Vladsloo and on Eessen. We did not have to wait long for the reply and a few of our men were wounded.

The morning was relatively calm, but towards one o'clock, the battle began again as fiercely as the day before. This time the enemy aimed at the roads by which we might retreat. The German firing was more exact now. A quantity of vehicles were stationed on the Oudecapelle road. At the first shells, they started off at a trot for shelter. Three waggons were hit and the horses fell down. The fête began once more and Dixmude was again bombarded violently. A shell set fire to the Collégiale and the tower was soon a brazier. Through the capricious flames we could see an arch for an instant, and then the clock tower foundered in an apotheosis. It began to get dusk and five fires could now be seen against the horizon. Dixmude burst into flames here and there. A roof flamed up and threw a vivid brilliant gleam over the open-work gables. The Germans were firing continually and the bursting of their projectiles made a cloud of sparks. It was dismal and at the same time imposing.

The firing continued and then, in a moment's lull, which seemed strange in the midst of the infernal noise, we heard the charge being sounded. This was followed by an immense and ferocious clamour which was answered by an intense firing. Suddenly, everything was quiet and this sudden silence in the midst of the darkness was most impressive. We wondered whether the enemy had succeeded or been repulsed. The silence continued. Then the firing began again, more intense still and in the same spot. We breathed freely, for the line had evidently not been forced. The anguish which we had all felt was over. It had been atrocious, that anguish of listening and seeing nothing, knowing nothing for certain, except that our lives and the lives of so many others were at stake, in the midst of the mysterious darkness. We kept all our positions. For three whole days it was one incessant fight. The German Infantry was a few hundred yards away from ours, and on the Yser, to the north of Dixmude, we were each holding one of the banks of the river. For four nights we had taken what rest we could, just as we were, and we had no notion of time. We ate when we could; sometimes the meals were good and frequently bad.

October 22nd. With the dawn the firing slackened. The Germans were falling back and we opened a violent firing in the various directions of their retreat. Then there was silence again. We wondered whether they had changed their points of attack. Towards ten o'clock, an energetic cannonading began towards the right. Our Cavalry Divisions were on that side and the English were making their way vigorously in the same direction. At eleven o'clock, the battle began again. The big calibre abounded on the German side. They showered their 15 and 21 on us in all directions. Nothing was spared. The ground was ploughed up with a frightful noise and the fields studded with enormous craters. Up to the present, there had been more noise than damage. During the afternoon and the evening, the Boches attempted several more attacks, but these all failed. We fired with great rapidity and our storms did a great deal of damage and cut short their attempts. Some of the prisoners told us that we had destroyed one Battalion and part of the Cavalry, which had been taking refuge at the Castle to the south of Dixmude. The French army had asked us to hold out two days on the Yser, and our troops had resisted eight days, and had been attacked during six days with terrific stubbornness.

October 23rd, 24th, and 25th. The Infantry attacks were getting fewer and farther between. On the other hand, the Artillery was working hard. The Germans have a fearful proportion of Artillery of all calibres, and it is their cannon that does the most work.

The struggle continued like the day before and the day before that. It was the Battle of the Aisne continuing. The adversaries had retrenched themselves, and more particularly before Woumen. The Boches had piled up their embankments here. As I was out on observation every day, along the banks of the Yser, I could see their trenches spring out of the earth as though by magic, grow longer and become intersected with each other. They work with an ease and activity that is remarkable. In a place where there was nothing at night, a close network of trenches is to be seen the following day, together with a series of junctions and communication trenches. We fired violently, and overturned their mole-heaps, but a few minutes later we could see the rapid movement of earth turned over, and hear the noise of the iron spades, which would soon restore the damaged places.

In the distance, a few patrols were moving about; a battery was passing by at a trot in a sheltered road. In the beet-root fields, to the south of Dixmude, could be seen long, grey figures lying in front of the German retrenchments. This was a neutral zone, within which no one could enter. All this was the ransom of the battles of the previous day, these were the dead bodies that could not be brought in.

On the evening of the 23rd, we heard groans and shouts in bad French coming from the long grasses in the fields. This was the first time I had heard wounded men shouting. A few voices could be heard above the rest: "Help! Help! French ... wounded!"