We have seen that at the end of November, 1914, Ypres was still in the Allies' hands, though the Germans were exerting a fierce pressure in that region, and were gradually, even if very slowly, getting closer and closer to it.
At the beginning of December, 1914, the Germans drew their forces close up to Ypres, so closely in fact that they could bring into play their small-caliber howitzers, and before many hours Ypres was in flames in many places. The allied forces fought fiercely to compel the Germans to withdraw. Hand-to-hand fighting, bayonet charges, and general confusion was the order of the day. Thousands of men would creep out of their holes in the ground and crawl, availing themselves of whatever covering presented itself, to some vantage point and there stand up as one man and charge directly into the adversary's ranks.
All this was part of the general scheme worked out miles from the spot where the conflict was going on. There in some quaint little town occupying some out-of-the-way house was the General Staff. The rooms were filled with officers; the walls were hung with large and small field and detail maps, upon which were plainly marked the name of every commanding officer and the forces under his command. Every detail of the armies' strength—names of the commanders, and any other detail was plainly in view.
It was here decided to turn the entire command of the allied forces along the Yser over to the British to avoid confusion. It was well that this was done just at this time, for on December 3, 1914, the Germans made a fierce onslaught along the entire front of thirteen miles between Ypres and Dixmude, bringing into use a great number of stanch rafts propelled by expert watermen, thus carrying thousands of the German forces over and along the Ypres River.
Again the belligerents came to a hand-to-hand conflict, and so well directed was the allied counterattack that no advantage to the Germans was obtained. For three days this severe fighting continued. The struggle was most sharp between Dixmude and the coast at Westende, where the Germans hoped to break through the allied lines, and thus crumple up their entire front, making a free passage.
On December 7, 1914, the French captured Vermelles, a minor village a few miles southwest of La Bassée. This little village had been the center of a continuous struggle for mastership for nearly two months. At last the French occupied this rather commanding point, important to the Allies, as it afforded an excellent view over a wide stretch of country occupied by the Germans.
The German Staff headquarters were removed from Roulers, which is about twelve miles distant from Ypres, on December 8, 1914, from the vicinity of Ypres, while their own forces had been concentrated upon Dixmude, twelve miles to the north. This town had suffered severely before, but the allied forces using what shelter they could improvise, were doing considerable damage from this point. Therefore the Germans began to bombard the place.
On December 9, 1914, the Germans succeeded in gaining slightly toward Ypres. Farther north they were by this time also in a position to take Furnes under fire. This town lies on the frontier between Belgium and France, in the path of some of the most savage onslaughts on the part of the Germans to break through the allied lines in order to reach the channel towns of Dunkirk and Calais.
On December 10, 1914, the allied forces made an ineffectual attack on Roulers, which the German General Staff had just left. South of Ypres the allied forces made a severe attack upon the town of Armentières, about eight miles from Ypres, but gained no permanent advantage.
During this time the Germans had also so far succeeded in consolidating their positions in the neighborhood of Ostend, that they could put their heavy guns in position near the shores of that famous watering place. This was a very necessary precaution to meet the attacks of English gunboats, and even larger cruisers that were patrolling that coast.