In Flanders Flooded Fields

by Paul Van Pul

  Later in the evening, Tom Bridges left Belgian Headquarters in Nieuport-Bains for Roulers – some 40km to the south-east – where Rawlinson now had his headquarters installed. Here Captain Commandant de Lannoy, his Belgian counterpart at Fourth Corps, had phoned Colonel Wielemans at 19:00 telling him that Sir John French had sent a message to Rawlinson ordering his Fourth Corps to march on Ypres the next day.

  Over ninety years on, at the same spot where Colonel Bridges once stood. The house in the foreground is new but the dwellings further down the towpath, now a country road, still look very familiar.

  Author’s photo archive.

  Evidently Sir John French wanted to concentrate his BEF. He had never liked Kitchener’s idea of a separate force operating independently in Belgium. Now that he had become the overall commander of British troops on the continent his main concern was not to take any risks, even if it had to be against the directives of General Ferdinand Foch.

  Arriving by 23:00 at the Town hall in Roulers, Bridges met with Rawlinson and de Lannoy. While they were discussing next day’s operations, the three of them agreed, in light of these new developments, that the best thing to do for the Belgians was to organize defensively behind the Yser River. Rawlinson’s aim, as he had expressed to King Albert three days earlier, had to be abandoned. His forces would not be able to cover the whole northern front and protect the Belgian Army while it reassembled and re-equipped in a safe zone, behind the lines.

  While they were still debating the opportunity of next day’s move, Bridges apparently kept on pondering about those floods around Ostend and the rather negative reply he had received, first from the lockkeeper in Nieuport on 10 October and secondly, only a few hours earlier, from Captain Commandant Nuyten, but also emanating from the lockmaster in Nieuport. Suddenly Bridges turned to de Lannoy:

  ‘What do they call polders in your language?’ De Lannoy responded by saying that these were lands, below high water, from which dunes or dykes protected them.

  ‘Well,’ Bridges retorted readily, ‘I asked around at Belgian Headquarters if there was no way of inundating the polders along the Yser with seawater and the answer was that it was impossible. However, Captain Commandant Nuyten will be instructed to study the question.’

  But the tactical situation was by now rapidly changing. In fact the next day the German Third Reserve Corps occupied Ostend and the British Fourth Corps moved into Ypres. The need for a flood around Ostend had disappeared. But it shows the confusion the lockmaster had created among the British staff officers operating in Belgium.

  In the afternoon, at General Headquarters in Nieuport-Bains, the atmosphere suddenly turned sour when a new French Mission arrived and manu militari took over the offices of the Belgian Operations Section. The French officers’ attitude and intentions made it clear that the Generalissimo’s directives were expected to be executed, not discussed. By the time Emile Galet arrived on the scene the arrogant Frenchmen had made such an impression on the always-conciliatory Wielemans that he had already drawn up orders for the next day to move all army divisions into an offensive position close to Thourout. At the very moment when the whole army was being reorganized and needed to adapt to the battlefield such a major move would be pure suicide.

  As we mentioned earlier – and on top of it all – they received, in the evening, the message from Captain Commandant de Lannoy in Roulers that Major General Rawlinson would be moving from Roulers to Ypres the next day. This came like a bolt from the blue to everyone. Field Marshal French was uncovering the whole northern front, on the one hand ignoring Foch’s directives and on the other exposing all Belgian forces east of the line Ostend-Dixmude. The French officers for their part were simply outraged. That ‘s another dirty trick of them! They just do as they please and torpedo all schemes without warning!’

  On the Belgian side it was utmost consternation. The king, who was not present at the time, had to be informed at once. Wielemans and Galet immediately left and headed for the Crombez Mansion, taking with them the operations map showing the advance of the enemy up to a line west of Eecloo.

  By evacuating Roulers for Ypres, Rawlinson at once created a 20km gap between the Belgian troops and the BEF. Moreover, the army divisions just west of Thourout now stood in a position well forward vis à vis the Anglo-French forces. The king agreed that this was an untenable situation and that now, more than ever, all the units had to stay where they were and establish a strong line of defence.

  NOTES

  1. For a critical review of the role of lockmaster Dingens in October 1914 see Appendix I, The elusive keeper of the locks.

  2. Not only was King Albert honourary commander of a German regiment and on several occasions had been present at German military manoeuvres, he had also studied Prussian tactics during his training at the Royal Military Academy in Brussels.

  3. Leopold II (1835–1909), second king of the Belgians. Having no male descendants his nephew Albert, became third king on 23 December 1909.

  Chapter V

  Jacta Est Alea

  With the Fourth Corps moving from Roulers to Ypres the decision on whether to evacuate the Belgian Field Army to England or whether to reorganize it on national soil had inadvertently been taken by Sir John French.

  With no British troops north of Ypres, not only was any protection for the Belgians lost but also the support for an evacuation had vanished. It would only be a matter of time before the Germans would reach the coast where the Belgians had been left to fend for themselves. King Albert saw what was to happen: not only would the army have to be restructured in the Furnes-Ambacht region, at the same time it would also have to defend its new entrenched camp.

  After two and a half months in the field, continuously confronted with an unstoppable superior war machine, the men were highly demoralized. Since the fall of Antwerp they had been marching for days with the enemy on their heels. Perhaps more importantly, the lack of a clear, made-in-Belgium strategic goal had been lost which weighed heavily on the morale of the rank and file.

  Desertions during the retreat had been common. In 1986 Anthony Van Tilborg, who had made the march from Antwerp to the Yser as a recruit, told the author that quite a few of the young men in his column just had fallen out of the line and had disappeared in the countryside. As the army made its withdrawal through Flemish speaking territory there were proportionally more Flemish boys of military age being rounded up by the gendarmerie in the process. In turn these boys were more familiar with the land and could easily escape or make it across the border into neutral Holland.

  To give them back a measure of self-confidence it was the king himself who issued a patriotic proclamation to his troops. In it he stressed the fact that from now on they would be fighting alongside the gallant French and British armies. They would only have to look forward and prepare with tenacity for the retaking of their beloved country.

  Accordingly, Army Orders were issued with regard to the reorganization and reinforcement of the Field Army. Without any reserves that could be called upon, the only way to replenish the thinned ranks was to draw from the garrison units that had been able to escape from Antwerp. The infantry and artillery units would draw on the spot from their corresponding garrison units every able-bodied man. The divisional engineers would do the same.

  At 23:00 another order was issued stating that the two army divisions west of Thourout should immediately organize a forward defence. The other four divisions were to establish several bridgeheads east of the Yser and guard the corresponding passages over the river. Meanwhile the First Cavalry Division was spending the night west of Thielt while the Second billeted just south of Bruges.

  The Head of the new French Mission that had arrived with so much ostentation was Colonel Brécard, and the same evening he paid a visit to King Albert. Unlike in the past, where the French had dealt with Belgian High Command, from now on they would have to communicate directly with the king. After the attempts of the Generalissimo to have King Albert relinq
uish his command of this army in favour of one of his generals, the king had notified the French Government through Baron de Broqueville:

  The Sovereign, in accordance with his government, intends to conserve the command of the Belgian Army, whatever its strength. But, he would be happy if the Generalissimo would act towards the Belgian Army as he acts towards the British Army and, accordingly, communicate directly with its Chief.

  During the night High Command got a better picture of the advance of the enemy: a column of 2,000 men were marching west from Eecloo while 8,000 were on their way from Ghent to Bruges. A third column had reached Deynze.

  At 10:00 on Wednesday 14 October, Colonel Brécard returned to General Headquarters with a message from General Foch. Having been briefed on the Belgian situation by Brécard, Foch agreed with a defensive posture by the Belgians along the line Roulers/Thourout/Ostend. But he asked them to stay in close contact with Ypres where the French were trying to establish a Franco-British centre of resistance. Foch did not exclude the possibility of the Belgians retreating but emphasized that they had to offer stubborn resistance. At any rate their ultimate line of defence had to be the Ypres Canal and its extension north.

  Still these ‘instructions’ from Foch did not sit well with Galet. ‘General Foch called us towards Ypres; we opted for Nieuport.’

  Field Marshal French though had succumbed to the eternal French insistence on attacking: later on news arrived in Nieuport-Bains that the BEF was to embark on a general move east from Hazebrouck.

  Sir John French, a cavalryman of the old guard, had seen at the Aisne River near Soissons what trench warfare looked like. So it was not difficult for the eloquent Foch to win French over to his offensive ideas. Besides, as we have already seen earlier, his friend Winston Churchill had convinced him that the Germans had to be kept clear of the Channel Coast at all cost. So Sir John French expected the Belgian Army to be able to march on his left between Roulers and Bruges. As a result, the staff officers at General Headquarters, with their French counterparts looking over their shoulders, had been drawing up plans for an offensive towards Thielt by three Belgian divisions.

  When King Albert was informed about Sir John French’s plan of attack the king was quite understandably pessimistic about the outcome of this new Anglo-French enterprise. But there was no alternative for him than to comply with the Field Marshal’s wishes. After all there was always that slight chance of success and of course, in any advance through Belgium, Belgian troops had to be alongside.

  As in the early afternoon word came from Rawlinson’s Fourth Corps that it was to undertake a broad offensive towards the Lys river the next day, the Belgians reluctantly agreed to support the move by acting in the direction of Roulers.

  14 & 15 October

  During the day the word had spread that the Germans had occupied Ostend. This of course also entailed the fall of the Port of Zeebrugge. From a naval point of view this was a more serious matter. The harbour with its new mole, large navigation lock and inland docks was perfectly adapted to act as an enemy submarine base. The British Admiralty had undertaken the work of evacuating the Belgian stores that had accumulated there in the previous weeks and subsequently wanted to destroy the mole and harbour works. But British Army Command for its part still hoped to return soon and objected to the destruction of the ports of Ostend and Zeebrugge.

  This fateful decision of course would lead to the rapid use of both harbours by the German submarine force for daring attacks on allied shipping in the North Sea and the Channel. The British Fleet would eventually try to stop these deadly raids by the now famous and courageous but bloody blocking operation of both ports in the spring of 1918.

  In the evening information arrived at Belgian High Command that four German columns, each 10,000 men strong, had arrived respectively in Bruges, south of Bruges, in Thielt and 15km north-east of Courtrai. This was a clear warning that the Germans were moving en masse towards the Channel coast.

  Since their retreat from Ghent the French fusiliers marins had formed the open right flank of the advanced position taken by the First and Fourth army divisions west of Thourout. Upon receiving the news of the German advance, the marines’ charismatic commander Vice Admiral Ronarc’h urgently asked to pull his brigade away from their exposed position south-west of Thourout and bring them more in line with the bulk of Belgian forces. The Belgian Deputy Chief of Staff finally had to concede that in the end a positioning of all troops along the Yser would be the more prudent move.

  Army Orders for the next day were issued at 22:00. The First, Second and Fourth army divisions, together with the French Marine Fusiliers, were to move behind the Yser and prepare the defence of the accesses across the river from Nieuport to Dixmude. The Fifth and Sixth were to deploy east of the river, south of Dixmude. The First Cavalry Division would cover them to the east. The Second Cavalry was to patrol south of Ostend to monitor the German advance. The Third Army Division would be kept in reserve west of Dixmude. This was again a compromise: the defence of the river between Nieuport and Dixmude was taken in hand but to the south two divisions were kept in readiness to move east in case the British succeeded in their attempt to reach the Lys. The last sentence of the orders read: ‘General Headquarters will be installed in Furnes tomorrow.’

  Thus the dice was rolled. By abandoning the seaside settlement of Nieuport-Bains for the inland location at the county town of Furnes, the royal decision to stay on national soil was confirmed.

  In the city of Nieuport the street scenes were by now beyond description. The main coastal road from Ostend to Dunkirk passed over the route des Cinq-Fonts – the Five Bridges Road 1 just outside town. A constant stream of horses, soldiers and refugees with children, bags and carts kept on flowing across the narrow bridges. Any manoeuvring of the drainage structures, let alone opening one of the bridges and thus blocking the main escape route was practically impossible. The situation for lockmaster Dingens and his aides was growing tenser by the hour. Orders and counter-orders created confusion, and certain scenes bordered upon the ridiculous. Flavoured with a strong anti-establishment undertone Gerard Dingens would recount the following incident after the war.

  At a certain moment locksman Theo Provost, standing on one side of the Count Lock got the order from an officer to open the swing bridge across the lock. Simultaneously on the other side of the lock, a sergeant, who didn’t know what was going on at the opposite side, howled at assistant Bogaerde: ‘If you dare to open the bridge I will shoot you!’

  Some time later the francophone officers simply requisitioned the handles for the bridges from the lockmaster. Apparently they had had enough of the lockmaster’s perceived stubbornness. Unfortunately for all, the handles had disappeared. In all the confusion, but unaware to both parties, they had been taken away by other soldiers and moved to the Rattevalle Bridge, 3.5km upstream on the Bruges Canal. This was grist to each party’s mill: Dingens being infuriated by this latest infringement upon his authority, the officers angered by what they saw as another trick of this alleged subversive Fleming.

  For the officers in charge it was apparently time to take drastic action and the lock-master was escorted to the general in charge, at that moment standing at the Nieuwbedelf Gates. The general, certainly quite uneasy about having to use the Flemish language and presumably aware of the vaudeville-like situation, choose to remain silent and act as the presiding judge. One of the escorting officers, a major, asked Dingens where the handles were.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Dingens stressed again.

  ‘You must know!’ the major responded with a commanding voice.

  ‘How am I supposed to know when your soldiers took them away without uttering a word?’

  This was strong language from a humble civilian in front of all these ‘stars and bars’! While the officers were still flabbergasted, Dingens turned his back on them and calmly returned to his office. If they thought they had a new recruit on the block they were wrong! But a young lieutenant, ful
l of fire and eager to make a good impression upon his commanders rushed after the seasoned lockmaster, pulled him by the arm and with a loud, tremulous voice exclaimed: ‘We will execute you!’

  Much ado about a bridge handle. This picture was taken in 1991 at the swing bridge across the Furnes Canal in Furnes. The cylinder at the bottom fitted over a recessed key in the centre of gravity of the bridge. On top, through the pipe, a wooden pole would be pushed which, by turning, would lift the steel structure, thereafter it could turn on ball bearings. This swing bridge has since disappeared.

  Author’s photo archive.

  The lockkeeper, undisturbed by this absurd behaviour and senseless threat halted, took off his service hat and with a penetrating look at the young man calmly said:

  ‘Execute … me? Why?… I’m sixty-five, am I still worth a bullet? You can put your five cents to better use but I do not fear the execution. Why would I have to die?’ The lieutenant was taken aback.

  ‘Because of your churlish behaviour towards the general. You walked away without his permission.’

  ‘Oh,’ Dingens responded, ‘is that a general? Well, tell him I’m only a trivial employee but I try to be just as honest as he is and if I’m rude by walking away without his permission he is even more impolite by not wanting to talk to me personally.’

  And the lockkeeper walked on, leaving the bewildered lieutenant behind.

  Nonetheless, Dingens started to phone around and after a while found out that the tools were in the shed of the bridge man at Rattevalle. The lieutenant wanted Dingens to have a man send for them. But along the Bruges Canal at least twenty-five requisitioned cars were sitting idle, their drivers having a nap, smoking a cigarette or just hanging around. Perhaps this was a transport unit, unrelated to the guard detachment, simply awaiting new orders. But that didn’t bother the lockmaster.