In Flanders Flooded Fields

by Paul Van Pul

  It is my duty to do my work, and I will continue to do so until a higher ranking officer tells me, on his responsibility, to leave my post.

  Being lockmaster in Nieuport was an enviable job 1. You came to live in a large two-story house, built in between the dispersed locks and surrounded by an enjoyable garden. On duty you commanded a force of nine or ten lockkeepers and assistants who worked the locks and sluices upon your directives.

  Thanks to your hydraulic knowledge, hundreds of farming families and thousands of artisans and small merchants living in the surrounding polders felt protected from the erratic seas. Through the Nieuport sluice complex 377 square kilometres of polder – or more than twice the area of Washington, DC – was drained. By manipulating the water levels in the different polders you, the lockmaster provided these people year round with the right amount of fresh water to grow excellent crops and thick, green pastures.

  There had been earlier dark times, when no heavy wooden, double doors protected the low-lying land. A time when every major storm in the North Sea could wreak havoc deep inland and pull hundreds of helpless victims to their death.

  As lockmaster you knew and met boat people from near and far and as such were the ambassador of your city. All this meant that you stood in high regard with the local people, from notaries and noblemen through merchants and fishermen to farmers and factory workers.

  Lockmaster Dingens and his staff stand at the gantry of the Furnes Lock. In between the group we see a typical capstan to manoeuvre one of the flood doors. Historical prints collection Callenaere-Dehouck.

  Lockmaster Gerard Dingens in October 1914 was no exception to this rule. On the contrary, being a determined self-educated person, he had become a respected public figure in Nieuport intellectual circles. Who was this man?

  Gerard Dingens was born in 1849 in the Netherlands, in all likelihood in Sas-Van-Gent, just across the border from Selzaete. For unknown reasons and early on he emigrated to Belgium. At the age of twenty-eight he was already living in Nieuport as an employee of the Roads & Bridges department. The young man from Zeeland-Flanders apparently had a way with technical drawings since in 1876–77 he took part in the design and construction of the new lock-and-gate structures at the northern entrance to the city. At that time he also gained his Belgian citizenship. The young Dingens had a lightning career: six years later, at age thirty-four, he was appointed lockmaster-collector in his hometown. All this meant that by 1914 he had accumulated over forty years of impeccable service with the Waterways Department of the Ministry of Roads & Bridges.

  As such it would not be surprising that Dingens was well acquainted with, and perhaps even friends with, several engineers and other high-ranking officials in the Waterways Department of the Coast. As we will see later on, these relationships would after the war be quite valuable.

  The City of Nieuport was the man’s whole life. Here he was a man of distinction: besides the fact that he was perfectly bilingual he was Secretary of the local Flemish Rhetorical Society and the Nieuport Savings-Bank. He was also a member of the Philharmonic Commission and Vice President of the Flemish-Liberal cultural movement Willems fonds. On the job he directed his personnel with an iron fist and, proud of his locks as he was, he could talk in great detail about them to well-mannered outsiders. The British officers and later Captain Commandant Nuyten, were extremely well mannered, very polite and asked for his advice. They treated the lockmaster as one of their peers. But his strong personality and steadfast attitude were bound to collide with the invaders of his territory.

  At first young, rude and practically illiterate soldiers invaded his domain and appropriated tools and equipment in the name of a so-called military authority. The proud lockmaster’s office began to look like Grand Central Station: soldiers began to use it as a guardroom. They fumbled with his electric apparatuses and measuring tools and rummaged through his paperwork and books. All this fooling around made Dingens nervous and very uneasy about the future.

  Understandably, given the circumstances, animosity was created immediately on both sides. Lockmaster Dingens evidently resented the French speaking, Belgian establishment, embodied by the engineer officer and his men invading his territory. The soldiers on the other hand, were afraid, in a general mood of ‘spy-catching’, that the lockkeeper, apparently a militant and intellectual Fleming, would wire strategic information to the other side.

  On the morning of Monday 12 October, some 12km north-east in Ostend, the king had an early morning meeting with Baron de Broqueville in order to draw up a reply to the French president. It had been a quite chilly autumn night but the day brought an expectation of at least a few sunny breaks. Upon the request of the Belgians to take refuge in France, the French government had taken the necessary steps to grant official asylum status to the king and his government.

  In his telegram to King Albert the French President, Raymond Poincaré, had written:

  I have been informed of the decision of the Royal Government [to move to France]. The Government of the Republic is deeply touched and will immediately take the necessary steps to secure the stay of His Majesty and his Ministers …

  In his letter of thanks, drawn up in accordance with the Minister of War, the king acknowledged the hospitality granted by the President of the French Republic to … just his government!

  I am deeply touched at the hospitality that France is willing to cordially offer to the Belgian Government and the measures that…

  By not mentioning his own person, the king officially indicated his resolve to stay with his troops, the bulk of which he clearly did not want to enter France. It represented his unflinching conviction that he was the Commander-in-Chief of the Belgian Army and the Symbol of the Nation.

  In the middle of the afternoon the Belgian Colonel Léon d’Orjo de Marchovelette arrived at the Chalet in Ostend for a meeting with General Jungbluth. Up until now nothing is known about the subjects discussed. But Léon d’Orjo, being posted at French High Command, was of course heavily exposed to the French ‘offensive’ mindset. Undoubtedly the king wanted him to understand exactly what his ultimate intentions were. Who better than Jungbluth to brief him? At about the same time, the king met Baron de Broqueville, also at the Chalet. General Headquarters meanwhile was again being packed up, this time to transfer to Nieuport-Bains.

  The Yser Mouth with both palisades still intact before the war. On the opposite, left bank one can see the pilot house. Along both stockades and at the fisherman’s wharf upstream, several troop transports could have docked simultaneously to embark the remainder of the Belgian Army.

  Historical prints collection Callenaere-Dehouck.

  If we think in terms of making a stand at the Yser River – a view which has been held by most historians for almost the last ninety years – Nieuport-Bains seems to be a most peculiar choice to establish Belgian General Headquarters. We only have to look at a map to conclude that, for the coordination of the defence of the Yser front, the obvious place for General Headquarters would be in the centrally located county town of the region, Furnes.

  The choice of Nieuport-Bains is a lot more obvious though if we keep in mind that King Albert and his close advisers, for various reasons, had quietly favoured British support all along. Even the government had considered for a moment, before deciding on setting up at Le Havre, to transfer to England. This installation in Nieuport-Bains is just one of many indications that the king still kept the idea of a naval evacuation of his Field Army from Belgian soil to England at the back of his mind.

  After Ostend, the small town of Nieuport-Bains was the best choice. It did possess a railway station and paved road within a minute’s walk of a thousand metre long palisade in the Yser Channel. Here, and in the inner harbour, several sea-going vessels could dock simultaneously to embark troops. Moreover, the adjacent narrow-gauge railway line provided access to an extensive local inland network and would enable the transportation of the majority of the infantry by rail from its present, disperse
d encampments (see map chapter XIII, p.188).

  In the morning, news had arrived that the Anglo-French forces were on the verge of launching a major offensive. While French troops would march on Lille, the newly arrived BEF would move towards Courtrai on the Lys. Here they were supposed to join up with Rawlinson’s Fourth Corps and the Belgian Army! To this effect Joffre expected the Belgians to move south to cross the Ypres-Poperinghe route and proceed to the Lys. The purpose of this project, in the French offensive spirit anyway, seemed to be the recapturing of Lille by French troops and an outflanking manoeuvre by the BEF, supported by the Belgians. That would mean another forced march with an army of which The Reverend Vermeulen just had written: ‘Every citizen took it to heart to see our army in such a miserable state.’

  Now that the Germans were on the move westwards again there was no question of transporting the exhausted and by now severely under-equipped Belgian divisions to Ypres or further east. From the localities they were now stationed, three divisions would have to march thirty-five or more kilometres, just to get to their starting point. Even supposing that the Belgian Army was able to make it to Ypres, there was no way that upon arrival, they could conduct any offensive action. While the stores of the Field Army were again being relocated, this time from Ostend to Dunkirk, no reliable supply line could be set up to support an operation of this magnitude. Moreover, by leaving the coast the Belgians would not only lose the protection of their left flank, a fundamental factor in their strategy since the retreat from Antwerp, but they also risked being deprived of their sole free link with England.

  Navigating a narrow channel in foggy conditions can be hazardous. On Christmas Day 1923 the vessel Jarrix ended up on the breakwater lining the river mouth. Note that the palisade has not yet been fully repaired from the war’s ravages.

  Historical prints collection Callenaere-Debouck.

  With this unrealistic plan Joffre discarded the notion that at the moment the Belgian Army was unfit to take to the field. His Deputy Foch, closer to the scene and with a more realistic view of the situation did solve the problem with the two divisions territoriales, the 87th and 89th, that had been protecting the detraining of the BEF between St Omer and Hazebrouck. He put both under the command of General Bidon, the Military Governor of Dunkirk, and ordered them to move east and organize a strong defensive position around Ypres.

  Now that the threat of a German drive through western Belgium was becoming more real – enemy columns were reported to be moving from Ghent towards Bruges and Thielt – Foch cabled the following directive to Pau concerning the deployment of the Belgian Army:

  Under the protection of the Rawlinson Corps and the Belgian cavalry divisions, the five Belgian infantry divisions fit to take the field, will establish themselves on the line Roulers-Thourout-Ostend. They will be there tomorrow evening, 13.

  This project was already a more sensible approach to the problem and a lot closer to the ideas of King Albert. Trying to outflank the enemy in the vicinity of Courtrai while he was closing in on the coast, along the Dutch border, was not so prudent a manoeuvre.

  But in the end it was a matter of déjà vu all over again to the king. Maybe countries like France and Great Britain, with almost unlimited resources, could afford to organize an offensive involving such risks. His responsibilities towards his compatriots, exhausted, empty-handed and driven together onto the last square miles of national territory, dictated the utmost caution. A certain premonition, coupled with his personal knowledge of the Prussian military mind 2 warned him that a major confrontation was about to happen on the German right flank. Indeed, as long as the Channel ports were still free, the risk of the British Grand Fleet landing a second BEF in the German flank was too important to be neglected by German High Command.

  The Belgian monarch realized that occupying the Belgian coast would be a priority for the enemy.There were enough indications in the field that the Germans were up to a major offensive in order to take what was left of Belgium and to conquer the Channel coast. The Second Cavalry Division, now west of the Ghent-Terneuzen Canal, reported German troops on the east bank of the canal from Selzaete to Ghent. So they too were skirting the Dutch border! More south, on the Dendre river, aerial patrols revealed that railway troops were repairing river crossings and installing debarkation ramps in the shunting-yards.

  At 17:00 another meeting was held with the Anglo-French representatives. The king expressed his doubts concerning the planned attack towards Courtrai and proposed that his army should take up an entrenched position in the low-lying area behind the Yser River. For the Belgians, this front was easier to defend and not as advanced. With the Yser, its dykes and the multitude of ditches, the region was a bulwark, relatively simple to organize. Even in the event that the French and British did not reach Ypres, and as such not the Ypres-Yser Canal, it would only be a matter of occupying the left bank of the river from the confluence with the canal from Ypres, to Rousbrugge at the French border.

  Finally a compromise was reached: it was agreed that the First and Fourth army divisions, supported by the fusiliers marins, would take up an advanced position some 12km east of the line Dixmude/Ostend. The Third and Fifth would start organizing the forward defence of the river while the Second would stay in Furnes and the Sixth guard the southern approaches along the Yser between Rousbrugge and Loo.

  12 & 13 October

  Not everyone agreed with the idea of exposing two divisions in front of the Yser position but in the end it was the Deputy Chief-of-Staff’s point of view that won the day.

  The two cavalry divisions, still west of the line Deynze/Ghent/Selzaete, were to stay in close contact with the enemy columns to test their forces and to determine their marching directions. Would they move north-west to Bruges and Ostend, or south-west to Thielt and Thourout?

  Meanwhile, the French logistics had managed to organize the rear of the Belgian Army. The depots and recruits were to be directed by ship to Le Havre. As the Port of Boulogne was still heavily used by the British, the Belgian Army Base was to be established, for the time being, in the Calais/Dunkirk area. Measures were being taken to provide railway cars to transport stores and prepare for nourishment of the attending men and horses. In fact the French Compagnie du Nord, after previous refusals – notably 21 September, 5 and 10 October – to allow thousands of Belgian rolling-stock units onto its system now asked 300 to 400 cars from the Belgian Railway Company. As Belgian wagons and carriages were stuck for tens of miles on every available line near the border by now, they were provided immediately.

  In the evening General Foch was quite optimistic about the mainly unopposed advances that the Franco-British troops had made during the day. As a result, he moved the detraining of the British First Corps up from the St Omer/Hazebrouck sector to the Hazebrouck/Bailleul area.

  At Belgian General Headquarters attention was now being focused on the organization of the Furnes-Ambacht region as an entrenched camp. While on 9 October this region had already been mentioned as a possible temporary refuge for the army it was now obvious that the winding Yser River would have to be transformed into a defensive barrier.

  The mail boat Ville de Liàge, sister ship of the Stad van Antwerpen, was the first mail boat to return to Ostend harbour after having been in exile for four years.

  Author’s photo archive.

  The river and adjoining Ypres Canal were not unknown territory to the Belgian staff officers. As late as 1913, when war clouds were already darkening European skies, studies had been taken up on the principal lines of defence in the country. While the Meuse River had been scrutinized as the primary line against an aggressor from the east, a similar study had been made of the defence against an invader – France – from the south. Here the waterway from Nieuport to Ypres comprised the westernmost first line of defence. Facing the Dunkirk Fortified Place it was of particular importance to the Belgian defence and had been studied to some degree.

  Now of course an unexpected situation had devel
oped: instead of the Belgians facing west, the line would have to be occupied facing east! Nevertheless, as the general topography on both sides of the river was similar, the river offered good defensive properties along both banks. The flat terrain, criss-crossed by hundreds of ditches and canals and the scarcity of access points would hamper the approach of the enemy and made for a quite reliable position by a well-prepared, dug-in defender.

  After the war quite a few authors directed a lot of criticism towards the army for not having studied the possibilities of inundating this region. Although some of this criticism can perhaps be attributed to a biased point of view by these authors, High Command, and the engineers in particular, should indeed not be blamed for this lack of understanding of the drainage system of this westernmost and low-lying part of the country. The knowledge of inundating a terrain for defensive purposes was well known – and still being taught – at the Royal Military Academy but mainly in conjunction with the defence of Antwerp, the National Refuge. The defence of the line of the Yser as mentioned earlier, was only meant as a temporary measure to delay an invader coming from the south. It was a first line of defence to gain time in order for the international guarantors to mobilize their forces and come to the rescue of the Belgian kingdom.

  At seven in the morning of Tuesday 13 October the Belgian mail-boat Pieter de Coninck put to sea from Ostend. Concerned about the safety of the important passengers the British Admiralty provided escort with three river monitors that, as we will see later, would return in the ensuing days for shore bombardment. All the members of the cabinet – except the Minister of War – the Ministers of State and the Diplomatic Corps were aboard, heading for Le Havre. Half an hour later a second mail-boat, the Stad van Antwerpen put out for the same destination with civil servants of various ministerial departments. Under a low, overcast sky and with an icy drizzle it made for an emotional farewell to Belgian soil.