In Flanders Flooded Fields

by Paul Van Pul

  For those that were left behind a lot of work was ahead. Soon after, the Head of the Cabinet, Minister of War Baron de Broqueville departed by car from Ostend for Dunkirk, ready to organize the arrival of the military stores from Ostend. The Commander-in-Chief himself and his close advisors left on horseback for their new headquarters in Nieuport-Bains.

  Shortly after the departure of both mail-boats an officer of the Military House of the King – unfortunately we do not know exactly who – made a seemingly mysterious, but nonetheless extremely interesting telephone call from Ostend to Deynze. As a result a unit of the pionniers-pontonniers cyclistes of the First Cavalry Division immediately disabled the switching and signalling apparatuses and destroyed other vital equipment at the Deynze railway station. Subsequently the small engineering unit withdrew across the Lys river and blew up the last remaining river crossing in that location, the railway bridge. What was the reason for this peculiar order, evidently emanating from the king himself?

  It was expected that the enemy would occupy Deynze soon. If the railway in this locality was left intact, the Germans would be able to launch an armoured train on a 70km raid straight to Nieuport and alongside the Yser mouth. It might look like a suicide mission but it would have created tremendous havoc among the thousands of troops if they were ever assembled between Nieuport-Ville and Nieuport-Bains for an embarkation to England.

  The lightship Dyck, six nautical miles north-west of Dunkirk. At the outbreak of war all navigational aids like this one in the Channel had been removed, making a sea journey even more hazardous. One more reason why a British navy escort for the mail boats was appreciated.

  Author’s photo archive.

  This fear for a surprise enemy raid behind the lines was certainly not unfounded. One story in the Revue du Touring Club de France recalls that in September 1914 a German open tourer and two trucks left Noyon (80km north-east of Paris), went round the front line and succeeded in reaching the Foret de Lyons near Gournay-en-Bray, 40km from Rouen, by way of small unguarded roads. The raid was led by Oberleutnant von Gartner who, before the war, owned a hunting licence in this forest and who knew these woods like the back of his hand.

  Unfortunately though, during a brief stop of the convoy a woman gathering brushwood spotted the Germans. She immediately informed the nearest gendarmerie where a ‘posse’ was organized with local farmers. With hunting rifles, pitchforks and clubs this diverse group attacked the Germans, in the course losing four men out of five. Nevertheless their brave sacrifice enabled the authorities to gain time: the German ‘commandos’ finally ran into a roadblock set up by Territorials. But the fact remained that the enemy party ultimately had managed to get 110km behind the French lines. And this was certainly not an isolated incident. On 4 October, at the outskirts of Lille, French Garrison Chasseurs exchanged fire and subsequently halted a German armoured train bound for Calais, 100 km to the west.

  In the circumstances though the raid would have failed due to sheer coincidence: Colonel Brécard reported on 14 October to Joffre that twenty trains loaded with equipment from Antwerp were sitting on the railway line between Nieuport and Dixmude. As we will see though another strange rail incident would happen in Dixmude a few days later.

  At General Headquarters the staff officers were more concerned with the direction the enemy columns took leaving Ghent. Were they heading north-west towards Bruges and Ostend, or south-west towards Courtrai and Lille? News had arrived that all Anglo-Belgian troops had left Ghent the previous evening and that important German columns were converging on the city. So a patrol was ordered to push to the western outskirts of Ghent and report on the enemy movements on the arterial roads.

  During the day, as a formation of an estimated 10,000 Germans were marching from Selzaete towards Eecloo, the Second Cavalry Division withdrew to Bruges while the First moved to the area north of Roulers.

  Upon arrival in Nieuport-Bains Captain Commandant Galet crossed the Yser mouth and made a reconnaissance trip through the range of dunes west of the village of Lombartzyde (see map p. 188). This statement was made by General Emile Galet in his book seventeen years after the war. One of his observations was that if they held the village of Lombartzyde, the Germans’ artillery would be able to take the whole west bank of the Yser in enfilading fire. If the army was to make a stand at this river it was essential that the troops hold on to the village and the adjacent dunes. Nevertheless, in view of what has been argued earlier, we suspect that the investigation of the king’s confidant on the east bank still had other, ulterior motives.

  It looks rather strange that a member of the royal inner sanctum would occupy himself with such trivial tactical details, let alone remember them so many years later that he broached the subject in his book. There was indeed a more strategic reason for Galet’s innocent excursion. We should not forget that he was one of the brains behind the royal strategy.

  At that moment two infantry divisions were stationed east of the Yser. If these large units needed to be evacuated by sea to England they could lose valuable time crossing the river by the few small bridges over it. At the time though the mouth of the river was on either side flanked by a long palisade jutting into the sea. It would therefore be handy if troops stationed east of the river could also use the eastern jetty to embark. But unlike the western pier, which was near the railway and tram station, the location of the eastern stockade was isolated, adjacent to a large section of dunes and 2,000m from the nearest paved road.

  On 13 October General Headquarters was established in the Grand Hotel des Bains on the sea promenade in Nieuport-Bains, just steps away from the Yser mouth.

  Historical prints collection Callenaere-Dehouck.

  Ordnance maps from before the war indicate, nevertheless, that a single, narrow-gauge rail line branched off in Lombartzyde and ran up to the pedestrian entrance to the jetty. This line had obviously been built so visitors to the seaside resort of Nieuport-Bains, coming from Ostend and farther field, could avoid the long detour by the City of Nieuport itself and a probable wait at any of the three busy locks north of it.

  In our opinion it is clear that the main reason for the Captain Commandant to cross the river mouth and make a walkabout in the deserted dunes was to check for himself the local topography, the physical situation of the railway line and the layout of jetty. Not only plans for a successful embarkation depended on his personal assessment; perhaps even the survival of the country as well!

  Of course in 1931 there was no reason to mention this train of thought in his book: the allies had won the war so, for the sake of the nation, any alternative and desperate projects of 1914 could as well be buried.

  After having left Ostend at 16:00 by motorcar Queen Elisabeth arrived an hour and a half later in Nieuport-Bains where she was to stay with her husband at the luxurious Crombez Mansion on the wind swept sea promenade.

  The Crombez family was of wealthy Walloon stock. At the passing away of the childless Benjamin in 1902, his nephew, the young and dashing Henri, had inherited large land estates on this side of the Belgian coast.

  King Albert and Queen Elisabeth stayed at the Henri Crombez Mansion on 13 and 14 October, a hundred yards from the Grand Hotel des Bains. To the left we see the glass roof of the adjacent covered garden.

  Historical prints collection Callenaere-Dehouck.

  At the end of the nineteenth century Crombez the Elder had initiated the development of Nieuport-Bains into an upmarket seaside resort. As such though he had come into conflict with a formidable rival, King Leopold II 3 himself who at the time harboured similar plans for ‘his’ Ostend. But all this was history now.

  Henri loved the good life and moved around in high circles with ease. In 1907 he had opened a large golf course with all amenities on the east bank of the Yser Channel to cater to the rich and famous. The narrow gauge railway had already been extended from Lombartzyde into the dunes and perhaps one day he also intended to develop Lombartzyde-Bains into a luxury resort. But Louis
Blériot and his aviation exploits must have caught his attention and he soon got into the flying business. His pilot’s licence, dated 18 October 1910, carried serial number 26. In 1914 he flew his own Deperdussin monoplane and with this machine volunteered for the Compagnie des Aviateurs when the war broke out. All volunteer aviators were organized into a new squadron, the 5th. Perhaps due to his connections in high places, Henri Crombez was appointed squadron leader. At some point he was even given the title ‘the king’s personal pilot’. The Crombez Villa stood a good 100 metres west of the Grand Hotel des Bains where General Headquarters had been installed in the morning. Although this isolated, small sea resort, only 14km away from France looked dreary in the cold autumn wind, it was almost perfect for conducting the upcoming operations. Even here High Command still had excellent communication links with Britain. The army was not only still in possession of the undersea cable to England at La Panne but had also access to the wireless telegraph station near the harbour entrance lighthouse.

  This wireless – or ‘Marconi’ – station had been the first in Belgium, being inaugurated in 1900 by the then Prince Albert accompanied by his wife, then Princess Elisabeth, and General Harry Jungbluth. The radio equipment had been installed in the small pilothouse on the sea promenade near the Yser Mouth. The aerial was erected on three wooden poles mounted on top of each other.

  The wireless station near the harbour channel in Nieuport-Bains. Through this station Belgian Headquarters was still in permanent contact with London. In the background the lighthouse and villa at the golf course of Henri Combrez on the opposite bank of the Yser mouth (today the military domain of Lombartzyde).

  Historical prints collection Callenaere-Dehouck.

  Today an electronic beacon in the same spot as the wireless ninety years ago.

  Author’s photo archive.

  It must be said that the undersea cable at La Panne and the Marconi station in Nieuport-Bains were now of the utmost strategic importance to the Belgian Army.

  As an example we mention here the incident that happened only a few weeks later on the other side of the globe. On tiny Direction Island, one of the Cocos Keeling Islands in the middle of the southern Indian Ocean, the British had installed a radio and telegraph station. Here the undersea cables of Australia, Africa and India all surfaced and interconnected. On 9 November the German light cruiser Emden landed a marine detachment with orders to destroy the radio equipment and cut the undersea cables. The marines did their work thoroughly – they even destroyed an innocent seismograph – but unfortunately for them the radio crew had managed to send a distress signal just prior to the enemy landing. For the Emden this meant the beginning of the end of an infamous, three-month marauding cruise on the high seas.

  Back in Nieuport, in the cold, late afternoon an officer of the General Staff, Captain Commandant Nuyten, returning from an unspecified mission, had his car halted at the lock system and called on lockmaster Dingens. Nuyten later wrote:

  Returning in the evening from my mission, I halted my motorcar at the entrance to Nieuport-Ville, in order to inform myself with the lockkeeper, in charge of the locks at that location, on the possibility to inundate the land east of the Yser. The good man gave me a negative answer. I did not insist and continued to Nieuport-Bains to account for the use of my day to my superiors.

  This was a quite peculiar post-war statement. Why did Nuyten not reveal the main goal of his mission on that day? Did he still have to conceal something important – just like his friend Galet? Why was a staff officer, with no engineering experience at all, interested in floods? From the limited context we can only suspect that Nuyten came from the direction of Ostend and from the lockkeeper’s account we deduce that Belgian High Command, and/or the king, were still interested in – British – flood plans ‘towards Ostend’.

  Dingens, recalling the encounter in 1920, elaborated on the subject. At first the Captain Commandant had asked him where he could contact his superiors, the Superintendent and the Chief Engineer of the department of Roads & Bridges. Nuyten was highly surprised to hear that Dingens was unaware of the whereabouts of his supervisors.

  From a post-war enquiry we know that the same day the Chief-Engineer and Head of the Roads & Bridges Service for the Coast, Mr Hainaut, had left Ostend in the morning for Le Havre, we assume even on the mail-boat Stad Van Antwerpen as mentioned earlier. We will later see under what circumstances Mr. Hainaut would return on 26 October.

  ‘But then perhaps,’ the Captain Commandant continued, ‘You can give me some indication regarding the terrain, the canals and the bridges of the area. There has been talk about inundating to the east of the Yser River, towards Ostend: is that possible?’

  This time the head-lockkeeper was a lot more compliant than with the francophone second lieutenant on Sunday, undoubtedly because Nuyten was an exception to the rule in the Belgian officer corps: he was Flemish, born and raised in the soon to become famous city of Ypres, just 30km to the south.

  Prudently Armand Nuyten at age sixteen had enlisted as a volunteer in the Third de Ligne Regiment becoming a corporal after only three months. Within three years he was a sergeant and entered the Royal Military Academy. In 1895, promoted a second lieutenant, Nuyten returned to the infantry in the First de Ligne Regiment. By the time he turned thirty he was Staff Assistant at the Second Regiment Guides, while he was later posted to the Liàge Fortified Place. In 1912, as Staff Captain Commandant, he was transferred to the Military Academy as a substitute Professor. Here, not two months prior to the outbreak of the war, he was appointed Professor at the Academy, responsible for the courses -Staff and Administration Services, Human Rights, Legislation and Military Law. With the mobilization of the army, in August 1914, he was attached to General Headquarters.

  Now, two months later, the army had been cornered in between the French border and the coast with only two options left: make a stand or ultimately embark for England. In the ensuing days his knowledge of legislation and international law would enhance his role at General Headquarters. But for now his interests were more down to earth.

  The area ‘east of the Yser River’ was in fact the same low lying region the British officers had referred to as ‘east of the Bruges Canal’ three days earlier. It is quite evident that Nuyten knew about the British investigations into the flooding of the Ostend surroundings. His information on this matter came through Colonel Tom Bridges, the British liaison officer at General Headquarters. Obviously Nuyten, knowing the land, had wondered why, according to his British counterparts, such a flooding seemed impossible. By asking the lockmaster he, Nuyten, wanted to verify this explanation for himself.

  But again, the lockkeeper gave the same answer: it was possible, but it would take quite a long time and one had to be in control of the Bruges Canal and its branch towards Ostend.

  For the time being though, Nuyten was more interested in information on the bridges crossing the Furnes and Loo canals. Unfortunately, in his post-war statement, Nuyten was not more specific about this last question. Or was he still bound by secrecy?

  If the army would have to guard the line of the Yser, these bridges would have to be able to withstand the constant traffic of heavy equipment. At least these were the standard tactical difficulties a military engineer would be confronted with. But Nuyten, as we have seen earlier, was not an engineer and as a staff officer at General Headquarters he was supposed to be dealing with problems from a strategic point of view. So one can wonder if he was not interested in these bridges because he worried what the enemy could use them for? The Furnes and Loo canals in a sense defined a bridgehead around the harbour at Nieuport. For instance, if the Belgians blew up these bridges at the right moment this would prevent the Germans from launching a surprise attack on the – by then embarking – Belgian forces.

  Colonel Tom Bridges was certainly a man of action. Here we see him on horseback on the towpath along the Furnes Canal, at the intersection with the road from Wulpen towards Oost-Dunkerke.


  Thys Family Archive.

  Anyway, seemingly satisfied with this knowledge Nuyten took leave and continued to General Headquarters in Nieuport-Bains. We will return to this strange conversation in a while.

  And here we have to organize a little scene. Upon arrival, presumably even over dinner, Nuyten met and talked with Colonel Bridges. Of course the question of the British defence of Ostend was mentioned. This was, after all, a crucial issue to the Fourth Corps and King Albert. One of the main Belgian worries for instance was the evacuation of the wounded from this city. On 11 October Queen Elisabeth wrote in her diary:

  … We have to absolutely evacuate the wounded from here. What a difficulty!… Here in Ostend we have over ten thousand wounded and no beds. We are short of everything: blankets, bread, milk.

  As the situation stood on 13 October, Ostend was still General Rawlinson’s embarkation port in case of an emergency. As three British corps – with the Indian Corps still at sea and on the way – were being deployed east of Hazebrouck there was a good chance of them forming a continuous front from Armentiàres, over Menin, Roulers and Thourout to Ostend. This last city would thereby be protected by floods along the Bruges Canal and supported by naval artillery. This way the Belgians would have the time to re-establish their forces in the Yser region, behind British lines. But things were now unfolding rapidly.