During the night the 43rd Reserve Division reorganised in order to recommence its attack on the bridge-head from east and south-east on the following morning. Days of terrific fighting ensued. The garrison of the bridge-head had received orders to hold out to the last man, and had been informed that any one who attempted to desert would be shot without mercy by men placed for this purpose to guard all the exits from the town. The Belgians were indeed fighting for their very existence as a nation. Nevertheless by the 21st October the 43rd Reserve Division, which consisted of volunteers from the Guard Corps Reservists, had taken the château south of Dixmude, and Woumen. The opposing sides lay within a hundred yards of each other. Artillery preparation, attack and counter-attack went on incessantly. Our artillery did fearful havoc and Dixmude was in flames. The Franco-Belgian garrison was, however, constantly reinforced, and conducted itself most gallantly. From the north the battalions of the 44th Reserve Division were able to advance slightly and drive the enemy back on to the town, and German batteries were brought up into, and at times even in front of, the infantry front line. Although we were unable to force our way into Dixmude, on the evening of the 23rd our troops were in position all round it.
On the left of the XXII Reserve Corps, the XXIII Reserve Corps, under General of Cavalry von Kleist, had advanced at 9 A.M. on 20th October on the front Handzaeme-Staden in order to reach the canal on the line Noordschoote-Bixschoote. The 45th Reserve Division was on the right and the 46th Reserve Division on the left. After some hours of street fighting Staden was finally surrounded and taken by the 46th Reserve Division. By nightfall a line from Clercken to the eastern edge of Houthulst Forest was reached. On the 21st the Corps had to cross a stretch of country which put these partially trained troops and their inexperienced officers to a very severe test. The great forest of Houthulst with its dense undergrowth made it exceedingly difficult to keep direction in the attack and to maintain communication between units fighting an invisible opponent. Small swampy streams such as the Steenebeck offered favourable opportunities to the enemy to put up a strong defence behind a succession of depressions. Thus our gallant troops after every successful assault found themselves confronted by another strong position: but unwavering and regardless of loss, they continued their advance.
By the evening of the 21st the 46th Reserve Division had completely driven the enemy out of Houthulst Forest,[29] whilst its sister-division had advanced north of the Steenebeck, and with its northern wing supporting the Corps fighting immediately north of it, had pushed forward to beyond Woumen. On the morning of the 22nd the heavy artillery opened fire against the French positions on the Yser canal to prepare the break-through. Unfortunately however only the northern Division was able to reach the sector allotted to the Corps, and an Army Order directed the 46th Reserve Division to the south-west against the line Bixschoote-Langemarck, in order to help carry forward the attack of the XXVI Reserve Corps, which was completely held up in front of the latter place. As a result of this the advance of von Kleist’s Corps also came to a standstill, although it had achieved considerable fame during the day. In spite of a desperate resistance the 210th Reserve Regiment stormed the strongly entrenched village of Merckem and the village of Luyghem lying north of it; a daring attack by the 209th and 212th Reserve Regiments broke through the enemy’s positions on the Murtje Vaart, whilst the 46th Reserve Division attempted to overrun the Kortebeck sector, supported by the concentrated fire of its artillery in position along the south-western edge of Houthulst Forest. The 216th Reserve Regiment took Mangelaere by storm, in doing which its gallant commander, Colonel von Grothe, was killed at the head of his troops. The 1st British Division held a strong position along the Kortebeck, in touch with the French, and artillery of every calibre near Noordschoote enfiladed the German attack.[30] The British themselves speak of our attack as a magnificent feat of arms carried out with infinite courage and brilliant discipline. The men sang songs as they charged through a hail of bullets in closed ranks up to the enemy’s defences. The 212th Reserve Regiment under Colonel Basedow, reinforced and carried forward by fresh detachments of the 209th Reserve Regiment, pushed its way into the strongly fortified village of Bixschoote. The enemy on our side of the canal, on the line Bixschoote-Langemarck-Zonnebeke, was threatened with annihilation. Bixschoote commanded the main road and the canal-crossing to Poperinghe, where the enemy was detraining his reinforcements.[31] The British therefore fought with the courage of desperation: for not only was the fate of the high ground east and north-east of Ypres now in the balance, but also the chance of being able to carry out the great Anglo-French offensive which had been planned. Ypres and the high ground east of the canal were on no account to be lost, and furious counter-attacks were therefore delivered against the intermingled German units. Nevertheless our gallant volunteers pressed on, using their bayonets and the butts of their rifles, until the furious hand-to-hand fighting was finally decided in our favour. At 6.30 that evening Bixschoote was ours. Unfortunately, however, owing to an order being misunderstood, it was lost again during the night: the exhausted attacking troops were to be relieved under cover of darkness, but they assembled and marched back before the relieving force had arrived. The enemy, ever watchful, immediately advanced into the evacuated village and took position among the ruins. Simultaneously a big hostile counter-attack drove the 46th Reserve Division from the high ground south of Kortebeck, which it had captured, and pressed it back beyond the stream again. The spirit and strength of the young and inexperienced troops seemed to be broken, and only a few of the subordinate commanders had yet learnt how to deal with critical situations. Officers of the General Staff and Divisional Staffs had to help to reorganise the men; they immediately turned and followed their new leaders, and were taken forward again to the attack. Thus on the 23rd the high ground south of the Kortebeck was won back by the 46th Reserve Division, but Bixschoote remained lost to us, and Langemarck could not be captured.[32]
On 22nd October, for the first time, our attack was directed from the north against Ypres. If the British and French did not intend to give up their offensive plans, and thereby their last hope of retaking Belgium and the wealthy provinces of Northern France from the hated German, they would have to maintain their positions along the Ypres bridge-head east of the canal between Comines and the coast. For this reason the country round Ypres was the central area of the Anglo-French defence from the beginning to the end of the battle. Our opponents defended this position on a wide semicircle by successive lines of trenches and with their best troops. Every wood, every village, every farm and even every large copse has won for itself a fame of blood. The reinforcements which Field-Marshal French received in abundance he placed round Ypres, but not only for defensive purposes; they were more often used to deliver attack after attack against our young troops who had been weakened by the hard fighting; and on 23rd October they were already being employed in this manner against the 46th Reserve Division.[33] He hoped to use the opportunity of our retirement behind the Kortebeck to break through our line and to roll up the part of the front lying to the north of it as far as the sea, and thus to regain the initiative and freedom of manœuvre on this extreme wing.[34] However, the blow was parried by the 46th Reserve Division. In ragged, badly placed lines the German units, which had scarcely had time to reorganise, brought the hostile masses to a standstill and won back in a counter-attack the ground which they had lost during the night. On this occasion, also, the gunners shared with the infantry the honours of the day. The fire of the guns, brought up into the foremost lines, made wide gaps in the attacking columns and the enemy’s losses must have been terrible. Our own troops had also suffered severely in the constant fighting and under the everlasting hostile artillery fire. Some of our regiments had been reduced to half their strength. But in spite of it the British did not succeed in breaking through between the XXIII and XXVI Reserve Corps.
The XXVI and XXVII Reserve Corps were by this time completely held up in front of strongly entrenched positions on the line Langemarck-Zonnebeke-Gheluvelt and opposed to an enemy who was becoming stronger every day and making the most desperate efforts to regain his freedom of action and begin a big offensive himself. The XXVI Reserve Corps, which advanced on the morning of the 20th, the 51st Reserve Division from the area west of Roulers, and the other Division from Morslede, encountered a stubborn resistance along the ridge Westroosebeke-Passchendaele-Keiberg. Fighting under the eyes of their general, who was himself in the thick of the struggle, the 51st Reserve Division stormed the slope on to the ridge and entered Westroosebeke. The French division defending it was driven out at four in the afternoon and, attacking incessantly, the gallant 51st, supported by the 23rd Reserve Jäger Battalion, reached a line from the railway-station north-west of Poelcappelle to Poelcappelle itself during the evening. The attack was all the more daring through the fact that Houthulst Forest was still in the enemy’s hands, and the flank of the division therefore appeared to be threatened. Meanwhile the 52nd Reserve Division had taken Passchendaele, Keiberg and the high ground between them from the British; the artillery again deserving the highest praise for its co-operation.[35] The attack, however, was brought to a standstill in front of the enemy’s main position at the cross-roads east of Zonnebeke. The XXVII Reserve Corps commanded by General von Carlowitz, formerly Saxon War Minister, lay in close touch with the 52nd Reserve Division on the evening of the 20th. Advancing in four columns and by constant fighting it had forced its way westwards. The Würtemburg Division had succeeded in driving the 7th British Division out of Becelaere after heavy street fighting, and the left wing was bent back on Terhand. Communication was there obtained with the 3rd Cavalry Division, fighting on the right wing of the Sixth Army, which had captured a hostile position north-east of Kruiseik.
On the morning of the 22nd a strong position lay to our immediate front. It followed a line Bixschoote-Langemarck-Zonnebeke-Reutel-Gheluvelt; and the I and IV British, as well as the IX French Corps,[36] all picked troops, had already been located there. They had dug a well-planned maze of trenches behind broad wire entanglements before a single German shell arrived to disturb their work.[37] The few stretches of rising ground in the district had been included in the skilfully selected positions as observation posts, and the defenders were thus able to bring our advancing columns under accurate artillery fire at long range. This was especially the case from the high ground near Zonnebeke, whence the whole ground in front of the position as far as Langemarck could be enfiladed. All these difficulties, however, were not sufficient to deter the offensive spirit of the German troops, and ‘Vorwärts’ was still their watchword: forwards and back with the enemy, so that the rigid western front might once more be mobile. The main body of the XXVI Reserve Corps attacked the fortress of Langemarck[38] from north and east, whilst the XXVII Reserve Corps fought for the upper hand in the woods between Zonnebeke and Becelaere. The great efforts made by the artillery to follow up the infantrymen with its guns and support them with their fire were in vain, owing to the difficult country, and the well-aimed fire from the enemy’s prepared positions reaped a big harvest. Leaders of all grades were killed, and officers of high rank took their places and reorganised the intermingled units.
With the failure of the 46th Reserve Division to gain a decisive victory between Bixschoote and Langemarck on 22nd and 23rd October the fate of the XXVI and XXVII Reserve Corps was also settled. For the time being any further thought of a break-through was out of the question. The troops up till now had met the enemy full of a keen fighting spirit, and had stormed his positions singing ‘Deutschland, Deutschland über alles’ regardless of casualties, and had been one and all ready to die for their country; but they had suffered heavily in the contest against a war-experienced and numerically superior opponent entrenched in strongly fortified positions. Even when the last reserves of the Army, the 37th Landwehr Brigade and the 2nd Ersatz Brigade, had been placed at the disposal of the XXVI Reserve Corps, they could only be used to stiffen the defence. During the night of 23rd-24th October the expected Anglo-French counter-attacks began, and continued throughout the 24th, against the front of the XXVI and the right wing of the XXVII Reserve Corps. By utilising temporary local successes and putting in fresh forces the enemy vainly hoped to prepare the way for a break-through; but the German troops though weakened held up all these furious onslaughts from positions which had never been selected for defence, but were merely those reached at the close of the attack.[39]
The Commander of the Fourth Army was forced to continue ordering all his Corps to attack, in order to co-operate with the Sixth Army which was attacking and, besides this, to pin the enemy’s forces opposed to him to their ground: for in the north a decision appeared to be imminent on the front of General von Beseler’s III Reserve Corps: in addition to the entire infantry of the 6th Reserve Division, which had crossed the canal by the morning of 24th October, the infantry of the 5th Reserve Division and five battalions of the 44th Reserve Division succeeded in crossing the Yser during that day. The enemy was compelled to evacuate the western bank of the canal from St. George to south-east of Stuyvekenskerke, in spite of the fact that there had been one French and four Belgian Divisions[40] opposing the III Reserve Corps, and that the ten howitzer batteries had proved insufficient to engage the Belgian, French and British artillery successfully. In consequence of this inferiority the old and new canal crossings lay under constant concentrated fire, and all our efforts to transport guns over the waterway failed. Many a fine piece of engineering carried out by our indefatigable sappers was destroyed by the enemy’s shells. The supply of ammunition and field-dressings became a matter of the greatest difficulty, as all the roads leading to the rear across the swampy meadows were continuously shelled for a long way back. Nevertheless our front troops held on firmly to their new positions. The next operation was to break through the enemy’s position here once and for all, though it was clear from the beginning that the attack would be a very severe one. Belgian and French working parties had dug a series of positions between the Yser and the Nieuport-Bixschoote railway, from which the ground in front could be commanded with frontal and enfilade fire from skilfully placed machine-guns and well-concealed batteries. On both wings, according to the latest information at hand, strong hostile attacks were threatening us, that is to say, near Nieuport as well as near and to the south of Dixmude. To meet these the Army Commander had replaced the 4th Ersatz Division, which had been echeloned back along the coast as a precaution against hostile landings, by detachments of the Marine Division, and a few troops placed at his disposition by the Governor of Belgium, and had ordered it to march to Thourout. At the same time, by order of General von Beseler, long-range guns were placed to prevent the enemy from concentrating for an attack in the Nieuport district. However, the expected attack took place in the neighbourhood of Dixmude, and was directed against those battalions of the 44th Reserve Division which had crossed to the west of the Yser. The enemy realised the great danger that threatened his bridge-head from the north-west, and put all available Belgian and French reserves into the attack. Thus between five and six battalions from three Belgian regiments and the Marine Fusiliers under Admiral Ronarch, with a strong force of artillery, advanced to the attack of our southern flank. The Belgians themselves describe this attack in the following words: ‘One saw the companies doubling forward in small groups, lying down on the officers’ signal, and then getting up to go forward again until they finally deployed into their attacking lines. But unfortunately they were asked to accomplish a superhuman task, and whole rows of the men were mown down by the machine-guns. Company after company was decimated, and in spite of the energy of their leaders they had to give way, death having taken too heavy a toll of their ranks. The Marine Fusiliers, who attacked with uncommon gallantry, soon shared the same fate. But all this sacrifice was not in vain—it stopped the enemy’s advance.’[41]