The Old Contemptibles

by Robin Neillands

  Although the autumn days were growing shorter and the morning mist did not usually lift until around noo hours, RFC reconnaissance was proving its worth and providing some vital information. Some roads to the east were clear of enemy troops while others seemed to be filled with long columns of marching men, artillery and wagons, all heading west towards the front. On the morning of 18 October, these reports suggested that a new formation, actually three divisions of the German III Reserve Corps, was moving into position opposite the Belgians north of Ypres. This was correct, and when these divisions were in position they promptly launched a most determined attack on a line between Dixmude and the sea. This attack was held off, the Belgian defence being aided by naval gunfire from a British cruiser squadron under Admiral Hood, which shelled the German troops north of Nieuport.

  This RFC information, when combined with the stiff resistance offered around Ypres and Armentières, seemed to suggest that the enemy strategy was for the Sixth Army to hold around Ypres as a pivot for another heavy attack between Dixmude and the sea, so turning the Allied flank in the north. The newly-formed Fourth Army, commanded by Duke Albrecht of Württemberg, consisting of four reserve corps, would mount the attack. According to the Official History, (24) this army was to win the war 'by successfully closing with the enemy who was still engaged with the concentration and reorganization of his forces and by gaining Calais, the aim and object of the 1914 campaign was to make a decisive breakthrough against the Allied left flank from Menin to the sea'.

  The second crisis of the 1914 campaign was now at hand. The opposing armies were both attempting the same strategy, a breakthrough the enemy line followed by a turning movement to the south. The 'revolving door' principle suggested by the Schlieffen Plan was about to be tried again, but before it got going the Allied and German armies would collide violently in the shell-torn country east of Ypres.

  Ypres 19-31 October 1914

  Not Mons or the Marne but Ypres was the monument to British valour, as it was also the grave of four-fifths of the original BEF.

  Barbara Tuchman, August 1914, p. 425

  The British Official History opens its account of the Battles of Ypres- and note the plural form - by admitting that 'it has been found impossible, in describing the fighting around Ypres in October and November 1914, to adhere rigidly to the limits fixed in the "Report of the Battles Nomenclature Committee"', adding that according to this report 'four battles took place simultaneously during October-November'. (1)

  This statement is quite true; the engagements between La Bassée and Ypres during that period were continuous and do not fit neatly into any convenient timescale. There is a considerable amount of overlap in events, and the problem in describing these battles of La Bassée, Armentières and Messines between 10 October and 2 November, and the main Battle of Ypres which began on 19 October and is further subdivided into the battles of Langemarck, Gheluvelt and Noone Boschen, is to avoid confusion. The solution taxes the resources and understanding of both writer and reader.

  And yet it could be argued that the inherent difficulty in describing these battles merely reflects the situation on the ground at the time. The battles for Ypres were confusing, and those who find the situation confusing now might consider how much more confusing it must have been for the Allied generals and their subordinate commanders at the time. These men were forced to make vital decisions with only the vaguest idea of what was actually going on and very little to help them in the way of accurate information or effective communications.

  Therefore, in the interests of clarity and with the inestimable benefit of hindsight, this chapter will follow up the events already described, those taking place from 10 to 18 October, and move north towards the salient to deal with events at and around Ypres during the period between 19 October and 2 November.

  However, it has to be understood that the first part of this battle for Ypres was not a discrete engagement. The battle for La Bassée, Armentières, Messines and the other battles hereabouts at this time all form part of the general struggle for Ypres. All had the strategic object of turning the enemy flank- 'enemy' in this case referring to the Franco-Belgian-British forces as well as to the Germans. The first phase is accurately described in the Official History (2) as the Encounter Battle, which occurred when the German Fourth and Sixth Armies pushing west encountered the BEF, French and Belgians pushing east. This last point too should be noted; although this book concentrates on the BEF, the battles for Ypres were never an exclusively British affair.

  Ypres is usually described as a 'cloth town' and, like most of these Flemish towns, it had indeed been a centre for the cloth trade in medieval times. By 1914 Ypres was best known for the manufacture of ribbons, lace, cotton and soap. The town had a population of some 17,000 and retained its medieval cloth hall and its strong earth ramparts and moat.

  The importance of Ypres to the armies of 1914 arose from a number of factors. It was a road, rail and canal centre and the nearest large town to the North Sea coast; the port of Dunkirk was just 30 miles away. Surrounded by an encircling ridge to the north, east and south, the Ypres salient was a bastion for any force that held both the city and the ridge. To the west was the Ypres-Yser Canal, which might have provided a far better defence line. However, as related, the true importance of Ypres to the Allies, or at least to the British and Belgians, at this time and later, lay in political and emotional factors. It was the last major Belgian town still in Belgian hands; the small amount of territory between Ypres and the North Sea was all that remained of 'poor little Belgium', and the Allies were determined to hang on to it. Many of the British soldiers' comrades had died defending this place and they would not lightly give it up.

  On 18 October 1914 the BEF front lay between the La Bassée Canal and theYser Canal, just west of the village of Langemarck, eight kilometres (five miles) from the northern outskirts of Ypres. On the way north it ran east of Armentières to Messines, then turned sharply east, around the salient ridge to Zandvoorde, before turning north again across the Menin road to link up with the French cavalry divisions of de Mitry's corps at the canal and so with the Belgian divisions holding the line to the sea; in short, the BEF encircled Ypres to the east like a shield. East of the BEF line two German armies, one a new formation, the Fourth Army, in the north-east, its existence as yet unknown to the Allied command, the other the veteran Sixth Army in the south-east, the two together mustering eleven corps, were slowly converging on Ypres.

  When the battles at Ypres began on 19 October the Allied forces on the northern front were disposed as follows. The French Tenth Army, under General Maud'huy, were holding the front from south of Arras to Vermelles, six kilometres (four miles) south of the La Bassée Canal. Then came Smith-Dorrien's II Corps and the Indian Corps, two French cavalry divisions of Conneau's corps and then Pulteney's III Corps. North of III Corps Allenby's Cavalry. Corps held the line up to the Menin road, then the two divisions of Rawlinson's IV Corps, the 7th Division and the 3rd Cavalry Division, held the line east of Ypres with Haig's I Corps linking up with de Mitry's cavalry and two French Territorial divisions, which in turn linked up with the Belgian Army, thus completing the Allied line from Dixmude to the sea. Again it should be noted that the French and Belgians also had units defending Ypres.

  On 11 October, at the start of the II Corps battle for La Bassée, General Foch was appointed Commandant Groupe des Armées du Nord (GAN). This army group included the Tenth Army and all the French forces north of Arras. The British and Belgian forces were obliged to cooperate with Foch's army group but there was still no unity of command. Foch could send the French and Belgian commanders copies of his orders to French units but could only hope that his allies would support him. Usually they did so; Foch had the major force on this part of the front and the advantage of numbers dictated the strategy.

  Foch's strategic plan, as noted, called for the Allied armies - French, BEF, Belgians - to advance north-eastward from the Ypres-Nieuport start line, dri
ve the German III Reserve Corps away from the coast and break through the German line in the north. These breakthrough forces would then wheel south-east, on a line running from Menin to Ghent, before crossing the River Lys and taking the German Sixth Army in flank and rear. Unfortunately for General Foch, the German armies were working to a similar plan but heading in the opposite direction; the opposing forces were set on a collision course.

  Battles do not come in handy packages, sealed at both ends. They arise from what has happened before and contribute to what follows. First Ypres started on 10 October when II Corps bumped into the Germans around La Bassée; after that the battle spread north as more Allied troops came into the line to confront the Germans farther east, and this process continued until battle was raging all along the northern front, from La Bassée to the sea. There is little evidence of a strategic plan, and when it finally developed First Ypres provided little opportunity for superior tactics or great feats of generalship. The battles around Ypres were, in the main, 'soldiers' battles', attempts to take ground, hang on to any ground occupied or recapture any ground lost, the weight of responsibility resting on battalion commanders and company officers.

  Although both sides were attempting to push forward, as the battle developed the weight of these attacks came from the German Fourth and Sixth Armies. The German armies had the most men and heavier guns but they were on the offensive, and the great lesson of the Western Front- that the balance of advantage lay with defence - was made fully apparent at Ypres, after the Allies were forced on to the defensive. Even so, German pressure was so strong and constant that the Allies were forced to throw in battalions and brigades wherever they were needed, simply to shore up the line; First Ypres rapidly became a battle of attrition, most costly in lives.

  To understand the fighting around Ypres it is also necessary to understand the terrain. Flanders is generally thought of as flat country, seamed with waterways and drainage ditches, heavy with mud, and there is truth in this assessment. There are two significant rivers, the Lys, which runs south-west from Menin, and the Yser, which runs from Cassel to the North Sea at Nieuport; the Belgian Army's part in the battles for Ypres is known as the Battle of the Yser. Another notable feature is the Yser Canal, which runs south from Dixmude and passes just to the west of Ypres.

  Flanders is not entirely flat; though most of the ridges around Ypres are low and the valleys between them shallow, some steep hills begin just to the south-west, around the town of Cassel. East of here the Mont des Cats, the Monts Rouge and Noir and steepsided Mont Kemmel overlook the Ypres plain and offer views to the south as far as the slag heaps at Loos. Beyond Kemmel this high ground drops away to lower ridges at Messines and Wytschaete, and in turn these ridges fall away east towards the villages of Gheluvelt and Passchendaele. Ypres is best imagined as lying in the centre of a saucer; the eastern rim of this saucer is the low ridge that runs from Messines to Passchendaele.

  The most significant physical factor in Flanders is the high water table. When it rains, any undrained land floods quickly, and with most of the drainage ditches destroyed by shelling, the country around Ypres rapidly became a quagmire in the autumn months of 1914. Soldiers digging trenches struck water after a couple of feet; in many parts of the line trenching was impossible and it was necessary to build sandbagged breastworks - the snag was that at this stage in the war there were no sandbags. A lack of every kind of trench equipment - shovels, duckboards, sandbags, buckets, barbed wire and the rest - simply added to the problems the BEF faced at Ypres. Once these trenches and dugouts were excavated, they rapidly filled up with water, until the men were standing for hours or days, knee or waist deep in chilly, muddy water.

  The major logistical problem, a now familiar one, was a grave shortage of artillery ammunition. On 23 October, General Sir William Robertson wrote:

  An enormous expenditure of ammunition has been expended over the last few days by the RHA and they appear to have shot, say, two or three of their guns entirely away. There has of course been a good deal of waste and a certain amount of sharp practice in units trying to pinch things in different ways but I do not think there has been any great excess of the latter although there certainly has been excessive waste. But when troops are fighting very hard one does not like to worry them about administrative matters. The chief thing is to beat the enemy and we must be lenient to some extent when fighting is taking place. I have no anxiety and never had any worth mentioning about food supplies but from the very first Ihave had a very great deal of anxiety with respect to ammunition. (3)

  The artillery commanders' problems were also compounded by the matter of terrain. Small elevations are often important to military commanders. This is especially so in battles dominated by artillery and the Great War was, above all, an artillery war. The ridges of the Ypres salient offered artillery commanders the opportunity to direct fire on to targets on lower ground and some protection for guns and gun crews on the reverse slopes. Between 1914 and 1918 this ridge around Ypres was vital ground. Whoever held the Ypres ridge dominated Ypres and the entire salient; most of the many battles around Ypres were battles for positions on the ridge.

  When the first elements of the BEF- Smith-Dorrien's II Corps - arrived south of Ypres in early October, the German forces on this front consisted of four corps of the Sixth Army. These Sixth Army units were able to hold the line and capture Lille but were unable to push west, being forced to extend and thin out their front as more Allied units came north in an attempt to outflank them. However, and with similar intent, General von Falkenhayn was forming the Fourth Army of IV Reserve Corps, which took up position east of Ypres in mid-October on a line from Menin to Nieuport, with the Sixth Army covering its left flank and the city of Lille.

  The Fourth Army was supported by a large amount of artillery and augmented by III Reserve Corps of three divisions brought down from Antwerp. By early October the Sixth and Fourth Armies east and north of Ypres amounted to eleven corps and the Fourth Army was tasked with 'successfully closing with the enemy, who was still engaged in the concentration and reorganization of his forces and, by gaining Calais, [achieving] the aim and object of the 1914 campaign'. (4) While the Fourth Army was thus engaged the Sixth Army would remain on the defensive, coming gradually into the fray as the battle developed.

  The Fourth Army was entirely composed of reserve formations; very few of the men in the ranks were professional soldiers. They were peasants, artisans, clerks, students, schoolboys and factory hands, with a leavening of regular soldiers, officers and senior NCOs to provide guidance, training and leadership in the field. Given their enthusiasm and such leadership - and the fact that most of the men had already completed at least two years' military service as peacetime draftees - the Fourth Army was a formidable military machine.

  The Fourth Army was also fresh, and that was crucial. The bitter fighting of the past two months had strained German resources quite as much as it had those of the BEF and the French. The fighting had been hard and the marching strenuous, but both sides still cherished the belief that one more effort, one more attack, one extra ounce of energy and sacrifice - and lavish amounts of courage and artillery ammunition -could still decide the outcome of this war.

  Germany was certainly not yet ready to give up those early ambitions. Their war plan had been based on victory in six weeks; this had not been achieved, so in a final attempt to bring the war to a rapid conclusion these eager volunteers, the last human resources of the German Empire, were sent into battle against the finest professional infantry in Europe, soldiers famed for a thousand years for their stubbornness in defence.

  By mid-October the Germans could count on sixteen infantry divisions and five cavalry divisions in the line around Ypres, with another five divisions marching west to join them. Of these, ten infantry divisions and five cavalry divisions from the German Sixth and Fourth Armies were about to confront the BEF east of Ypres. The BEF now mustered four corps totalling seven infantry divisions, three cav
alry divisions and one division of the Indian Corps. All these divisions were severely under strength - and the BEF had no reserves at all.

  On 14 October the German High Command ordered the Sixth Army to halt their drive towards Givenchy, Armentières and Menin until the Fourth Army was in position on their right, north of the Lys. That done, and with two full armies in the line, the Germans would launch a major offensive aiming to drive the British out of Ypres, back to the Channel coast and into the sea. This German offensive and the Allied push to the north-east would both begin on the same day, 19 October.

  In his memoirs, Field Marshal French dates the beginning of First Ypres to 15 October and admits that:

  I thought the danger was past. I believed that the enemy had exhausted his strength in the great bid he had made to smash our armies on the Marne and capture Paris. The fine successes gained by the cavalry and III Corps did much to confirm these impressions on my mind ...in my heart I did not expect I should have to fight a great defensive battle. All my dispositions were made with the idea of carrying out effectively the combined offensive, which was concerted between Foch and myself. (5)

  It is again noticeable that tributes paid to the 'fine successes gained by the cavalry and III Corps' omit any reference to Smith-Dorrien's II Corps, which had surely performed as well as any such force could have done at La Bassée. The second point to note is that French was now clearly willing to assist his French colleague­ Foch was not Lanrezac - though he was clearly influenced by Foch's ever-constant friend at GHQ, Major-General Henry Wilson.

  Callwell notes that at this time, 'Wilson was seeing Foch almost daily' (6) and experiencing considerable difficulty in persuading French to fall in with Foch's plans and arrangements. On 20 October, for example, Wilson's diary notes: 'It is a tonic to have a talk with Foch. I brought all this back to Sir John who said he would not take orders from a junior, etc., but he accepted the inevitable. He still clings to the 1st Corps going to Bruges but I don't mind this, as Bruges is for all practical purposes as far as Berlin, and tomorrow's fighting will settle that.'