[THE OPERATIONS OF THE FOURTH ARMY FROM 20th OCTOBER TO 31st OCTOBER 1914]
On 20th October the battle broke out along the whole line, on a front of about sixty miles. The enemy had got into position, and was prepared to meet the attack of Duke Albert of Würtemburg’s Army. On the very day that the British, French and Belgians intended to begin their advance they found themselves compelled to exert all their strength to maintain their positions against our offensive. The British and French had to bring up constant reinforcements, and a hard and bitter struggle began for every yard of ground. The spirit in which our opponents were fighting is reflected in an order of the 4th Belgian Division, picked up in Pervyse on 16th October. This ran: ‘The fate of the whole campaign probably depends on our resistance. I (General Michel) implore officers and men, notwithstanding what efforts they may be called upon to make, to do even more than their mere duty. The salvation of the country and therefore of each individual among us depends on it. Let us then resist to our utmost.’
We shall see how far the soldiers of the Fourth Army, opposed to such a determined and numerically superior enemy, were able to justify the confidence which had been placed in them, a confidence expressed in the following proclamations by their highest commanders on their arrival in Belgium:
Great Headquarters,
14th October 1914.To the Fourth Army,—I offer my welcome to the Fourth Army, and especially to its newly-formed Reserve Corps, and I am confident that these troops will act with the same devotion and bravery as the rest of the German Army.
Advance, with the help of God—my watchword.
(Signed) William, I. R.
ARMY ORDER.
I am pleased to take over the command of the Army entrusted to me by the Emperor. I am fully confident that the Corps which have been called upon to bring about the final decision in this theatre of war will do their duty to their last breath with the old German spirit of courage and trust, and that every officer and every man is ready to give his last drop of blood for the just and sacred cause of our Fatherland. With God’s assistance victory will then crown our efforts.
Up and at the enemy. Hurrah for the Emperor.
(Signed) Duke Albert of Würtemburg,
General and Army Commander.Army Headquarters, Brussels,
15th October 1914.
Who can deny that the task set to the Fourth Army was not an infinitely difficult one. It would have probably been achieved nevertheless if the Belgians at the moment of their greatest peril had not called the sea to their aid to bring the German attack to a halt. Let us, however, now get down to the facts.
On 20th October the III Reserve Corps, the battering ram of the Fourth Army, began an attack with its 5th Reserve Division, supported by almost the whole of the Corps artillery, against the sector of the Yser west of the line Mannekensvere-Schoorbakke. The 4th Ersatz Division to the north and the 6th Reserve Division to the south co-operated. By the early hours of the 22nd, the 5th and 6th Reserve Divisions had driven the enemy back across the river in spite of the support given him by British and French heavy batteries.[25] In front of the 4th Ersatz Division the enemy still held a bridge-head at Lombartzyde. At 8.15 A.M. on the 22nd the glad tidings reached the Staff of the 6th Reserve Division, that part of the 26th Reserve Infantry Regiment had crossed the Yser. Under cover of darkness the 1st and 2nd Battalions of this regiment had worked their way up to the north-eastern part of the bend of the Yser, south of Schoore, and had got into the enemy’s outposts on the eastern bank with the bayonet. Not a shot had been fired, and not an unnecessary noise had disturbed the quiet of the dawning day. Volunteers from the engineers silently and rapidly laid bridging material over the canal. In addition an old footbridge west of Keyem, which had been blown up and lay in the water, was very quickly made serviceable again with some planks and baulks. The Belgians had considered their position sufficiently protected by the river, and by the outposts along the eastern bank. By 6 A.M. German patrols were on the far side of the Yser, and the enemy’s infantry and machine-gun fire began only when they started to make a further advance. Three companies of the 1st and two companies of the 2nd Battalion, however, as well as part of the 24th Reserve Infantry Regiment, had already crossed the temporary bridges at the double and taken up a position on the western bank: so that, in all, 2½ battalions and a machine-gun company were now on the western bank.
The enemy realised the seriousness of the situation, and prepared a thoroughly unpleasant day for those who had crossed. Heavy and light guns of the British and French artillery[26] hammered incessantly against the narrow German bridge-head and the bridges to it. Lying without cover in the swampy meadows the infantry was exposed beyond all help to the enemy’s rifle and machine-gun fire from west and south-west. The small force repulsed counter-attacks again and again, but to attempt sending reinforcements across to it was hopeless. Some gallant gunners, however, who had brought their guns close up to the eastern bank, were able to give great help to their friends in their critical situation. Thus assisted the infantry succeeded in holding the position, and during the following night was able to make it sufficiently strong to afford very small prospect of success to any further hostile efforts. During the night several Belgian attacks with strong forces were repulsed with heavy loss, and the 6th Reserve Division was able to put a further 2½ battalions across to the western bank of the Yser bend. On the 23rd we gained possession of Tervaete, and the dangerous enfilade fire on our new positions was thereby considerably diminished. Dawn on 24th October saw all the infantry of the 6th Reserve Division west of the river. A pontoon bridge was thrown across the north-eastern part of the Yser bend, but it was still impossible to bring guns forward on account of the enemy’s heavy artillery fire. The 5th Reserve Division still lay in its battle positions along the river bank north of Schoorbakke, but every time attempts were made to cross the French and Belgian artillery smashed the bridges to pieces. The 4th Ersatz Division suffered heavily, as it was subjected to constant artillery fire from three sides, and to entrench was hopeless on account of the shifting sands and the high level of the ground water. Whenever fire ceased during the night strong hostile attacks soon followed; but they were all repulsed. The withdrawal of the main body of the Ersatz Division behind the 6th Reserve Division to cross the Yser, as General von Beseler had once planned, had become impracticable for the moment, for it had been discovered through the statements of prisoners that the 42nd French Division had arrived in Nieuport to assist the Belgians. The 4th Ersatz Division, which had been weakened on the 18th by the transfer of one of its three brigades to the 5th Reserve Division, could not be expected to bring the new enemy to his knees by the running fight that it had been hitherto conducting. The canal alone was sufficient obstacle to make this impracticable; in addition, the fire of the enemy’s naval guns from the sea prevented any large offensive operations in the area in question. Thus the Ersatz troops were compelled to resign themselves to the weary task of maintaining their positions under the cross-fire of guns of every calibre, to driving back the hostile attacks, and to holding the Belgian and French forces off in front of them by continually threatening to take the offensive. It was not until some long-range batteries were placed at the disposal of the division that its position improved. A couple of direct hits on the enemy’s ships soon taught them that they could no longer carry on their good work undisturbed. Their activity at once noticeably decreased, and the more the German coast-guns gave tongue seawards from the dunes, the further the ships moved away from the coast and the less were they seen.
General von Beseler never for a moment doubted that the decision lay with the 5th and 6th Reserve Divisions, especially as the four Corps of the Fourth Army, fighting further south, had not yet been able to reach the canal-barrier with any considerable forces.
The XXII Reserve Corps, commanded by General of Cavalry von Falkenhayn, had in the meantime come into line south of General von Beseler’s troops, and had already fought some successful actions. It had arrived on the 19th in the district east of Beerst and about Vladsloo, just in time to help in driving back the Franco-Belgian attack against the southern flank of the 6th Reserve Division.[27] That same evening it was ordered to attack from north and south against the Dixmude bridge-head, an exceptionally difficult task. In addition to the fact that the swampy meadows of the Yser canal limited freedom of movement to an enormous extent, the Handzaeme canal, running at right angles to it from east to west, formed a most difficult obstacle. Dixmude lay at the junction of these two waterways, and behind its bridge-head lines were the Belgian ‘Iron’ Brigade under Colonel Meiser, the French Marine Fusilier Brigade under Admiral Ronarch, and part of the 5th Belgian Division, determined to defend the place at all costs. About eighty guns of every calibre commanded with frontal and enfilade fire the ground over which Falkenhayn’s Corps would have to attack. On the 20th, in spite of all these difficulties, the 44th Reserve Division, on the northern wing of the Corps, captured Beerst and reached the canal bank west of Kasteelhoek in touch with von Beseler’s Corps. The 43rd Reserve Division, advancing on the left wing, took Vladsloo and several villages south-east of it on the northern bank of the Handzaeme Canal. By the light of the conflagration of those villages the reach of the canal between Eessen and Zarren was crossed on hastily constructed footbridges, and a further advance made in a south-westerly direction. Eessen itself was occupied, and the attack brought us to within a hundred yards of the enemy. He realised his extremely critical situation,[28] and his cyclists and all possible reserves at hand were put in to the fight. Owing to the severe hostile artillery fire the German losses were by no means slight. On one occasion when our advancing infantry units were losing touch with one another in this difficult country, a big hostile counter-attack was delivered from Dixmude. After a heavy struggle the onrush of the enemy was held up, mainly owing to our artillery, which heroically brought its guns up into position immediately behind the infantry front line.