Although on this extended front he had eventually to encounter very superior forces, his troops, both Cavalry and Infantry, fought with the utmost gallantry, and rendered very signal service.
The army of the Crown Prince of Bavaria was at this time opposed to the British between the line of the Lys and Lille, and it was along the ten miles between La Bassee and Frelinghein, amid a mass of almost continuous industrial villages, that the clash of the great battle began. Outnumbered by nearly three to one, the British troops were subjected to an incessant series of desperate assaults. It was clear that the rapid success of the British operations during the preceding week, as well as the collapse of the German projects, had stung the enemy to fury. The attacks began against Herlies and Aubers, villages north of the La Bassee spur, and themselves built along the tops or straggling down the slopes of two minor promontories. Beaten off with heavy loss to the enemy, these attacks were, regardless of the punishment received, renewed both by day and by night. The villages were reduced by the German artillery to ruins. Amid these ruins, however, and in the trenches cut for the defence, the British troops held out. In repulsing one of these attacks the Royal Irish, with magnificent dash, and burning to give the enemy a real taste of their quality, fought across the spur to Le Pilly, driving the Germans before them like as though their advance was that of a column of irresistible demons. In Le Pilly they entrenched themselves. They had gone so far forward, however, in the impetus of the pursuit that they were cut off from communication with the rest of the British force. They fought until their last cartridge was used up. For more than thirty hours they held out, surrounded by masses of Germans on all sides. Sheer famine at the finish compelled them, and their gallant commander, Major Daniell, to surrender.
Instead of diminishing, the German attacks increased in violence. Every successive repulse seemed only to add to the rage of their commanders. For four days and nights these onsets followed one upon another. To describe these but a little while before peaceful suburbs of Lille, now cut and blown into wreckage and swept by the fire and hurricane of war, as a hell is to put it mildly. The days and nights were days and nights of dismal darkness and rain. Foiled in the effort by a frontal attack to drive the British once more across the Lys, the Germans, now supported by the arrival of additional masses, developed their assault to the east and north of Ypres. On October 20 they captured Le Gheir, but were on the same day driven out of the place again with heavy loss. This important crossing of the Lys is the most direct route from Lille to Ypres.
In view of the heavy attack which by this time had been launched towards the flank position of the 3rd Army Corps at Le Gheir, the British cavalry were dismounted and put into the fighting line to fill the gap of some four miles still existing between Le Gheir and Zandvoorde to the south of Ypres. Throwing aside the sabre for the rifle and bayonet and the spade, the cavalry promptly dug themselves in, and proved as valiant in the trenches as they had time and again shown themselves in the saddle. They were a thin line of less than one man to the yard. Thin as it was, however, it turned out to be a line of steel.
On October 20 the 1st British Army Corps reached Ypres from St. Omer. They had covered the intervening twenty-five miles in one long day's tramp. It had been intended to send them in co-operation with the French cavalry forward to Thourout, and possibly on to Bruges. This scheme had to be abandoned.
On October 22 the battle became general from La Bassee to Dixmude. Following upon a terrific bombardment, a powerful column of the enemy, debouching from La Bassee, attempted in mass formation to rush the trenches held by the Wiltshires and the Manchester Regiment at Violaines. The attack never got home. The mass of the enemy, something like 6,000 strong, thrown into confusion by the deadly fire from the trenches, broke and fled. They were rallied and reformed from supports. A second time the assault was launched. It met with no better fortune.
In the meantime an attack in enormous force had been hurled against the positions held by the 3rd British Army Corps. This attack, one of the bloodiest episodes of the battle, also failed. The Germans, nevertheless, had got across the Lys at Warneton and at Comines, two miles farther down stream, and, forming behind the railway, which here runs on an embankment along the valley to the north of the river, advanced in overwhelming force upon Messines and Houthem. Though offering a desperate resistance, the British cavalry were forced to retire as far as Hollebeke and Wytscheate. Part of the Indian troops, the 7th Division, sent to their support, delivered a brilliant flank attack on the Germans from Wulverghem. The Germans held the ground they had gained, but their onset was paralysed.
The British front had now been dented in. In consequence it became necessary to reform it. The line was withdrawn. From Givenchy the positions extended to the high road running from Violaines through Neuve Chapelle to Armentières, and then through Armentières across the Lys to Wytscheate. This is, in fact, the main road from La Bassee to Ypres.
Disposed along a line from Bixschoote through Langemarck on the north of Ypres, the troops of the British 1st Army Corps were attacked by the whole strength of the army of General von Fabeck. The resistance opposed to these enormous odds was heroic. Time and again the attacks made in mass formation were beaten back. Upon the Prussian commanders the frightful losses suffered by their troops, who fell not man by man, but by ranks and companies, appeared to make no impression. A combined infantry and artillery attack drove the French cavalry across the Ypres and Nieuport canal. The British line had then to be retired. Under heavy fire the Cameron Highlanders dug themselves in at Pilkem on the canal two miles to the north of Ypres. At the end of a day of awful carnage the Germans at this point made a last desperate effort. They got at length up to the line of the trenches, hastily made to meet the exigencies of the moment. It came to the bayonet, with this comparative handful of British heroes against a mass of foes maddened by their losses. The Highlanders fought like lions. At the cold steel the Germans were no match for them. Nothing but their dauntless courage and their military superiority saved them from being totally wiped out. Out of that terrible fray the remnant of them retired, bloodstained and with bloodstained arms, but fierce and unconquerable, opposing a sullen front still to the enemy who, having at a fearful price won the position, had been too punished to follow up the advantage.
These trenches at Pilkem, it is interesting to note, were the nearest point at which during any part of the battle the Germans approached to Ypres. The enemy, however, did not enjoy his dearly-bought advantage long. At daybreak an attack upon the Germans was made by the Queens, the Northamptons, and the King's Own Rifles. The enemy had occupied the night clearing the trenches of the dead, mostly their own dead, with which they were choked. For so prompt a counter-attack they were evidently not prepared. In the cold grey of this October dawn they suddenly saw these lines of khaki detach themselves from the mist. It was like a bad dream, but it turned in a flash into a fiery reality. The British infantry were into them with the bayonet. Led by General Bulfin, who had proved on the Aisne that he was the man for a tight corner, the British brigade were out to retake those trenches. Of British bayonet work these German troops had already seen enough. There was a scene, as they endeavoured to rally, of mad rage and confusion; the shouts and curses of their officers mingling with the roar of conflict, and the clash of steel on steel in the savage work of thrust and parry. German reinforcements were hurried up. The line of fighting men, their own troops in retreat, the British pressing on the rear, met the reinforcements as they advanced. With this fresh mass to deal with, the British troops in turn were forced backwards. They fought with a bulldog tenacity, and once more the Germans gave way. By the end of the day, despite repeated attacks upon them, the British were masters of the position.