The Battles in Flanders, from Ypres to Neuve Chapelle

by Edmund Dane

In a word, the British Commander-in-Chief, seizing the nature of the difficulty, knowing its causes, and realising how much turned upon it, stepped forthwith into the breach. With Sir John French, as with General Joffre, to decide was to act. "Early in October" the decision was taken. On October 3 began the carrying of it out. What difference in time is there between "early in October" and October 3? No difference.

Thus while the Germans still imagined themselves opposed on the Aisne ridge to those British troops who, dug into their almost invisible entrenchments, had for nearly a month successfully withstood the repeated and furious attacks of the flower of the Prussian Army twice or more than twice as numerous as themselves, the British had silently ebbed away. Their places were taken by French troops of the reserve, and the Germans remained no wiser for the change. And the British travelled through Paris, and by roundabout routes, as it seemed to them, through north-west France, and very few remained wiser for their journey. Nor after long successive hours in crowded railway carriages followed by detrainment at a place altogether strange did any but a very few of the British even know where they were going to or for what purpose. All they knew was that they were going somewhere to meet the Germans.

No move in the campaign was more unexpected or more daring than this. It affords but one more proof of how false is the assumption that the element of surprise has been banished from modern war.

The secrecy of it was only less remarkable than its boldness. With an Intelligence Service supposed to be second to none, the German Staff were left without even a suspicion of it until it had been accomplished.

The importance of the move was that it made General Joffre's scheme for the military envelopment of the Germans immediately feasible. There was now but one more thing to do, and that was to withdraw the Belgian army from Antwerp in order that they should complete the Allied line.

That it is true involved the evacuation of Antwerp. Quite apart from the fact that the Belgian Army, reduced by the casualties and the hardships of their heroic campaign, were no longer sufficient in numbers properly to garrison that great fortress, their withdrawal served a purpose more valuable even than its defence. Many no doubt are much more readily impressed by the evacuation for the time of a great fortified city than by what they consider a mere military scheme, the value of which is a matter of opinion. In this instance, however, the carrying out of the scheme meant the assurance of victory in the war. The evacuation of Antwerp was advisable on the principle that the greater comprehends the less.

After the transfer of the British forces from the Aisne, and the removal on October 8 and 9 of the Belgian troops from Antwerp to the Yser, there were on the German flank from Noyon to the sea six Allied armies. Taking them in the order of position from south to north they were: the army of General Castleneau; the army of General D'Armade; the army of General D'Urbal; the army of Sir J. French; the army of General Maudhuy; and the army of King Albert.

Let it be remembered that in addition to the twenty-eight army corps of the German Expeditionary force as at first constituted, there were at this time either in or on their way to France twenty-one Reserve and Volunteer Corps, making the enormous total of forty-nine. That, independently of casualties and wastage, gives, on the German war footing, an aggregate of 2,940,000 of all arms. Undoubtedly the casualties and wastage had even up to this time been very heavy. It is reasonable and moderate to put it roundly at nearly 900,000 men, two-thirds of those losses being casualties in battle. Even that, however, left approximately 2,000,000 combatants. Besides, the casualties and wastages had been largely made good by fresh drafts.

When we bear in mind the vital consequence to Germany of the plan for re-seizing the initiative which the German Staff were endeavouring to carry out, there is nothing in the least surprising in their hurrying into France reinforcements and drafts of such magnitude.

The position in brief was that the total German force in France had been brought up to at least a million men above the immense, and as it was supposed crushing, strength of the initial Expeditionary Force, and that, too, despite the losses incurred.