The Royal Fusiliers who desperately stuck to their trenches fighting savagely were cut off and destroyed. Out of a thousand but seventy soldiers remained. Between two and three o'clock there occurred the most desperate fighting seen in the battle of Ypres. At 2:30 o'clock in the afternoon the Allies recaptured Gheluvelt at the point of the bayonet and by evening the Allies had regained their position. Ypres had not been captured by the Germans by this time, but they had secured their position in all the suburbs of Ypres and had that city at their mercy, provided allied reenforcements ordered up did not obstruct their path.
The fighting still continued for part of November, 1914, but for the month of October no definite result was to be recorded.
At Ypres, on November 2, 1914, the Germans captured 2,300 English troops and many machine guns. Dixmude was stormed by the Germans on the 10th of November, and they crossed the Yser Canal, capturing the Allies position west of Langemark, also driving them out of St. Eloi. Snow and floods interfered with the fighting along the battle front. Ypres was bombarded on several occasions and was repeatedly set on fire.
November 11, 1914, was another day of severe fighting. At daybreak the Germans opened fire on the allied trenches to the north and south of the road from Menin to Ypres. After a furious artillery fire the Germans drove their men forward in full force. This attack was carried out by the First and Fourth brigades of the Prussian Guard Corps which had been especially selected to capture Ypres if possible, since that task had proved too heavy for the infantry of the line. As the Germans surged forward they were met by a frontal fire from the allied lines, and as they were moving diagonally across part of the allied front, they were also attacked on the flank by the English artillery. Though the casualties of the Germans were enormous before they reached the English lines, such was their resolution and the momentum of the mass that, in spite of the splendid resistance of the English troops, the Germans succeeded in breaking through the allied lines in several places near the road. They penetrated some distance into the woods behind the English trenches, where some of the bloodiest fighting of the entire war took place.
On November 12, 1914, comparative quiet reigned and with the exception of artillery duels and some desultory fighting no results were obtained on either side. The British report makes this comment on this attempt upon Ypres: "Their (the Prussian Guard Corps') dogged perseverance in pursuance of their objective claims wholehearted admiration.
"The failure of one great attack, heralded as it was by an impassioned appeal to the troops made in the presence of the emperor himself, but carried out by partially trained men, has been only the signal for another desperate effort in which the place of honor was assigned to the corps d'élite of the German army.
"It must be admitted that the Guard Corps has retained that reputation for courage and contempt of death which it earned in 1870, when Emperor William I, after the battle of Gravelotte, wrote: 'My Guard has formed its grave in front of St. Privat,' and the swarms of men who came up bravely to the British rifles in the woods around Ypres repeated the tactics of forty-four years ago, when their dense columns, toiling up the slopes of St. Privat, melted away under the fire of the French."
Ypres was now but a name. Nothing but a mass of ruins reminded the world of its previous quaint splendor. For Ypres had been rich in historic buildings and monuments of past days.
With the fall of Antwerp the Germans had made every effort to push forward strong forces toward the west and had hastened to bring up new army corps which had been hurriedly organized, their object being to drive the Allies out of Belgium and break through to Dunkirk and Calais. Altogether they collected 250,000 fresh men. Eventually the Germans had north of La Bassée about fourteen corps and eight cavalry divisions, a force of 750,000 men, with which to attempt to drive the Allies into the sea. In addition there was immensely powerful armament and heavy siege artillery, which also had been brought up from around Antwerp. But in spite of these strong forces it became clearly evident by the middle of November that the attempt to break through to Calais had failed for the time being. The flooding of the Yser marks the end of the main struggle for Calais. The battle fronts had shifted. Between them there was a mile or two of mud and water. The Belgians had lost a quarter of their effectives. The Germans had evacuated the west bank of the Yser and were obliged to return to the point from which they had started.