If the Belgian Field Army had begun its withdrawal on October 3, as originally intended, it could probably have got safely without aid to Ghent and beyond. But the fortress troops, numbering many thousands, to whom it had been throughout resolved to confide the last defence of Antwerp, must in any case have been driven into surrender to the invader or internment in Holland once the Field Army had gone. The prolongation of the defence and the delay in the departure of the Field Army neither bettered nor worsened their fortunes. They, therefore, do not enter into any calculation of the loss and gain attendant on the attempted operation of relief. So far as actual results are concerned, the damage caused by the bombardment of the city, which was not extensive, and the internment of two and a half British Naval battalions, on the one hand, must be weighed against the gain of five days in the resistance and the influence exercised on subsequent events by the 7th Division and 3rd Cavalry Division on the other.
At the time the British Government decided to send help to Antwerp the total German field force in Northern Belgium had been correctly estimated at four or five divisions. But before the city capitulated and while the British troops were still at Ghent, there began to manifest itself that tremendous unexpected development of German force which from the moment of Antwerp’s fall was launched against the Allied left and aimed at Calais.
Besides the liberated Siege Army and the troops which had threatened the Antwerp communications, no fewer than four fresh Army Corps (XXIInd, XXIIIrd, XXVIth and XXVIIth), newly formed in Germany and concentrating in Belgium, were already at hand. And in front of this formidable army there stood from October 10 to October 21 only the wearied Belgians, the Fusiliers Marins, and the British 3rd Cavalry and 7th Divisions. The caution of the German advance may perhaps have been induced by their uncertainty as to the whereabouts and intentions of the British Army, and their fear that it might be launched against their right from the sea flank. But, however explained, the fact remains, and to it we owe the victory of the Yser and Ever-Glorious Ypres.
A simple examination of dates will reveal the magnitude of the peril which the Allied cause escaped. Antwerp fell twenty-four hours after the last division of the Belgian Field Army left the city. Had this taken place on October 3rd or 4th, the city would have surrendered on the 4th or 5th. No British 4th Corps[[70]] or Fusiliers Marins would have been at Ghent to cover the Belgian retreat. But assuming that the Belgian Army had made this good unaided, the same marches would have carried them and their German pursuers to the Yser by the 10th. There would have been nothing at all in front of Ypres. Sir John French could not come into action north of Armentières till the 15th. His detrainments at St. Omer, etc., were not completed till the 19th. Sir Douglas Haig with the 1st Corps could not come into line north of Ypres till about the 21st. Had the German Siege Army been released on the 5th, and followed by their great reinforcements already available advanced at once nothing could have saved Dunkirk, and perhaps Calais and Boulogne. The loss of Dunkirk was certain and that of both Calais and Boulogne probable. Ten days were wanted, and ten days were won.
We had now without respite to meet the great German drive against the Channel ports. The six divisions released from the siege of Antwerp, and the eight new divisions, whose apparition had been so unexpected to the British and French Staffs, rolled southward in a double-banked wave. The Belgian Army trooped back in a melancholy procession along the sea-shore to the Yser. General Rawlinson, with the 7th Division and the 3rd Cavalry Division, extricating himself skilfully from large German forces—how great was not then known—and lingering at each point to the last minute without becoming seriously engaged, found himself by October 15 in the neighbourhood of a place called Ypres.[[71]] Meanwhile Sir John French, detraining at St. Omer, and hopefully believing that he was turning the German right, struck through Armentières towards Lille, and sent imperative orders to Rawlinson, over whose head the storm was about to break, to advance in conformity and seize Menin. The French forces intended for the relief of Antwerp and the beginnings of larger French reinforcements endeavoured to close the gap between Rawlinson and the Belgians. The dykes were opened and large inundations began to appear. In this manner was formed a thin, new, loosely organised, yet continuous allied front from the neighbourhood of La Bassée to the sea at the mouth of the Yser; and upon this front, which grew up and fixed itself at every point in and by the actual collision of hostile forces, was now to be fought the third great battle in the West.
These events involved the Admiralty at many points. The position of Rawlinson’s troops in the presence of vastly superior forces was precarious, and for some days we stood ready to re-embark them. We laboured to salve everything possible from the Belgian wreck. The Royal Naval Division must be brought back to refit, reorganise and resume its interrupted training. The Admiralty details—aeroplanes, armoured trains, armoured cars, motor omnibus transport, etc.—with which I had been endeavouring during the previous weeks to conceal our nakedness in the vital coastal area, could now be merged in the arriving British armies.
It would not have been possible to deal with these complications—themselves only one subsidiary part of our task—unless Prince Louis and I, working in complete accord, had had the power to give orders covering the whole business which were unquestioningly obeyed. Yet some of the orders which I was forced to give to the Admiralty Transport Department left me with misgivings that we were asking more than they could do. Fortunately, a few weeks before, I had taken the step of appointing in the place of the retired Admiral who usually directed this cardinal machine the young civilian Assistant Director of Transports, whose abilities in conference and on paper were distinguished. Often in these weeks and in the succeeding months I had to turn to Mr. Graeme Thomson’s department with hard and complex demands. Never did they fail. October 10 was the climax of their strain. I cannot do better than quote the minute I wrote at the time:—
10/10/14.
Secretary.