The Germans realised that at Nieuport, in face of the guns of the British ships, they could not succeed. They made ready, in consequence, to throw their attack against Dixmude. For that purpose they waited until their whole force could come up. Their first attempt had been made with two army corps only. The respite enabled the Belgian army to be refitted. Both sides meanwhile proceeded to dig themselves in. In this region the water level is not more than two feet below the surface. No sooner were the trenches cut than the water oozed in. These conditions were aggravated by days and nights of heavy and almost incessant rain. A dense mist overhung the country. The nights, too, were now becoming bitterly cold. On the side of the Germans the numbers were large enough to afford reliefs. They were not large enough on the side of the Allies. The Belgians passed days and nights in the trenches under these conditions without respite. It was an effort of endurance that has never been paralleled. But for their unconquerable spirit these heroic men could not have come through such an ordeal. They were defending, however, the last few square miles of their country and they were defending that last bit of territory from foes whose pitiless cruelty they had seen in butchery and outrage. Behind them they had the memory of a happy freedom. Before them lay only the prospect of submitting for ever to the odious tyranny which had laid some of the fairest towns and districts of Belgium in ruins. In that mudded and warworn army there was a fire no hardship could subdue.
On October 21 opened the great German drive. It was directed alike and at once to the seizure of Ramscappel so as to compel the Belgians to evacuate Nieuport; against Dixmude; and farther south against the British positions at Bixschoote. The latter point was as far as natural conditions were concerned the easiest crossing of the three. There is here only one channel of the Yser with a line of canal on either side of it. The three attacks were made simultaneously because they brought into play the vast German superiority in numbers.
The enemy had massed along this front a great weight of guns, including the heavy pieces used in the attack on Antwerp, and his plan was to draw west of the Yser an impenetrable curtain of fire while he constructed pontoon bridges. There were difficulties. First the river channels were in flood. Secondly they were commanded by the French and Belgian guns. Thirdly and along their length they were under the cross fire from the warships. This acute spasm of the battle, lasting without a moment's respite for three days and two nights, was therefore in one of its main features a gigantic artillery duel.
Pontoon bridges constructed by the Germans were destroyed by the French gunners or by the shells from the warships time and again. More than once the bridges were struck and wrecked when they were crowded with troops and these miserable men, thrown in a struggling mass into the water, were drowned by hundreds. Time after time the Germans endeavoured to bridge the river, or rather the network of rivers before the effort at length succeeded.
Then from Ramscappel the Belgians were forced to retire. Once across the river with a considerable force of infantry, cavalry, and guns, the Germans seized Pervyse, and pushed forward to Furnes with such speed that the small Belgian reserve force there, surprised by them, had to quit hastily. A surprise, however, was also in store for the Germans. A division of French Algerian troops, who had been sent forward by forced marches to reinforce the Belgian resistance, were already close at hand. They reached Furnes shortly after the German advance force had established themselves there. The attack was as impetuous as it was unexpected. The Turcos cleared the Germans out of the place at the point of the bayonet. Enemy reinforcements, however, hurried up. In turn the Germans tried to carry the town by storm. The struggle went on from street to street and from house to house. Again and again the Germans were driven out. Again and again they rallied and renewed the fight. As night came on the French commander called upon his men for a supreme effort. It was victorious. Broken by this onslaught, the Germans were not only chased out of Furnes but pursued to Ramscappel and driven out of that village as well. Behind them their bridges over the Yser had in the meantime again been destroyed. Mr. A. Beaumont, special correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, who reached Furnes the following day, has recorded that:
The roads from Ramscappel to Pervyse, and from Pervyse to Dixmude were lined with the enemy's dead. Many of the fugitives tried to escape by the fields and canals, and their bodies are still found in great numbers. As in many other places in the north, quite a number of these Germans are very young, apparently under eighteen, or else more than fifty years of age.
King Albert of Belgium desired in person to honour the French troops who had helped to reconquer the village (Ramscappel), and an impressive ceremony was held a few days later. The King passed in review the survivors of the gallant companies of Turcos and Chasseurs in the little square. They were assembled at eight o'clock in the morning, and drawn up in a square in the presence of a French general. The King arrived in a motor-car and alighted at once. Three buglers, who had gone through it all, sounded the call, and the commander of the troops moved forward to salute them. The King likewise raised his hand in a long and silent salute. Then, accompanied by the General in command he passed down the lines, after which the troops in turn defiled in his presence. The buglers did their best, but their shrill notes were not in accord; yet tears came to the eyes of many spectators of this scene, and not the least moved among them was the King himself. The General then rode forward, and in a loud voice said: "The King desires me to transmit to you his hearty congratulations for your splendid conduct at Ramscappel; this is an honour of which your commander is justly proud."
Of the attack on Dixmude an account was sent by a German who took part in it to Vorwärts. He relates:
We lay for four whole days without anything to eat or drink. Day and night the earth trembled with the reports of the guns. No sleep was possible. Behind us lay a field of roots. Creeping down the bank in order not to be seen by the enemy, we managed to get some of them. We sucked up the night dew on the grass in order to slake our thirst. After four days we had to give up the position in order to attack the enemy from another side.
Next day it began to rain, and we stood up to the knees in water, and replied to the fire of the enemy until the evening came. All was quiet for a time. But the cannons continued their work. We watched by turns while the others sat in the water, and, leaning against the trenches, tried to sleep. A terrible picture faced us. Dixmude was in flames, and the whole sky was blood-red. The enemy's shells exploded with such a report that we thought our ears would burst, and the light was so strong that you could read a paper by it. Dealing death and destruction, the shower of lead sped through the night air over our heads. In the morning the sun rose a fiery red.