by Paul Van Pul
The king, who had just arrived at La Panne was quickly informed about this sudden and unexpected reversal of fortunes. He therefore had Colonel Wielemans draw up the following message for General Foch at 21:30:
The situation as explained in the 21 October dispatch is very grave; all our reserves are engaged in the line. Tonight or tomorrow the line of the Yser can be forced, or at Dixmude, or towards St Georges and Schoorbakke. It is very urgent that our line shall be supported at the right and that reinforcements should be ready to re-establish the situation where necessary. Our troops have been exposed to an uninterrupted bombardment and violent attacks for four days on a 28km front while we only possess approximately 50,000 riflemen (including the fusiliers marins).
The establishment of the French division north of the line Furnes-Nieuport is of no help to us and as such we cannot guarantee that we can hold on to the Yser.
Earlier on another French General, Victor d’Urbal, had arrived at his newly formed headquarters in Rousbrugge, the first Belgian village on the Yser across from the French border. From here he would lead the DAB in its offensive against the Boche. He was the kind of man Foch could appreciate because he was a vigorous cavalry officer imbued with the offensive spirit he himself had been advocating for years. At 01:00 d’Urbal had already issued the following order to his troops:
To Admiral Ronarc’h: contain the enemy offensive in front of Dixmude and hold on to its exits to facilitate our offensive on Thourout, while the Belgian Army holds on to the Yser between Nieuport and Dixmude. To General Grossetti: attack on Slype in order to take the exits of the Yser towards Ghistelles.
Reinforcing the Belgians on the Yser line was obviously not part of his overall assignment either!
On Wednesday morning, 21 October, orders finally arrived at the engineers’ unit from the commander, Major General Daufresne (6th Brigade/2nd Army Division), to inundate the so-called Nieuwendamme Polder [see map p.108]. Accordingly Major Le Clément sent the following order to Second Lieutenant François:
By order of the General commanding the Sixth Brigade you will immediately set a flood between the Bruges Canal and the canalized Yser, up to the Old Yser branch. On this matter you will contact the lockkeeper and agree with him; it will probably be enough to manoeuvre the gates at the fourth bridge, on the waterway called Nieuwendamme Creek. You might have to open a gate or cut the dyke called Kruis Dyke.
In any case you will make sure that the floodwater does not extend east of the Old Yser branch; as soon as possible you will report back to us while indicating the approximate hour the terrain will be submerged.
9:15, October 21, 1914.
P.S. Very important: Do not take any executive measure until the confirmation that I will send you eventually after I have met the General of the Sixth Brigade.
View of the Spring Sluice from the tidal bay. In the background we notice the Café Ecluse du Comte on the Bruges Canal. Note the heavy, rounded median wall of the sluice, which would act as a deflector for a nineteenth century shell.
Nieuport 1914–1918, R. Thys, 1922.
From the tone of this statement, written a day after the lock personnel had left, it would seem that the lockmaster’s claim six years later that he and his staff were ‘evicted’ from the locks by the military is rather exaggerated, if not untrue.
The order to restrict the flood to an area west of the Old Yser branch supports the notion that Belgian High Command still shied away from a large scale flooding of the right bank. We suspect that, at this time, the main reason was the French obsession for an offensive. A flood was, after all, a purely defensive measure. It created an obstacle for both warring parties!
Nonetheless François was faced with a problem: the lockmaster and his personnel not only had left the previous day but had forgotten to hand over any of the special tools needed to operate the structures. We suspect that Dingens, as well organized as he was and to avoid any misuse, had locked away all the gear before his departure. It should not be forgotten that the man was responsible, not only for the proper workings of the lock complex but also for the safety and well being of hundreds of inhabitants of the polders.
François contacted his superior officer asking for detailed instructions on how to execute the manoeuvre. As a result Le Clément replied:
1)
Please try to find the tools to open and close the gates.
2)
In the absence of any equipment please look into the possibility of fabricating it urgently.
3)
In any case we must be able to open and close the gates at will.
4)
You will keep the gates open as long as the water level in the channel is higher than in the Nieuwendamme Creek. You will close the gates between this creek and the channel (fourth bridge) when at receding tide the water level in the channel will be lower than in the creek.
5)
You will make sure that the water from the creek can overflow on the adjacent land. If necessary you will make cuts in the north and south banks of the above-mentioned creek (50 cm wide with the spade).
6)
If at all impossible to manoeuvre the doors, you will initiate an intermittent flood by keeping all the gates open permanently (if need be by breaking the doors) and by making the necessary cuts in the dykes of the Nieuwendamme Creek. October 21, 1914.
At 11:10 Major Le Clément and Captain Thys arrived at the guard detachment in order to show Second Lieutenant François exactly what to do to inundate the creek. The three of them then went to the Spring Sluice to inspect for any shell damage and to check the mechanical equipment.
The Spring Sluice was of an unusual design which certainly made the young lieutenant unsure of how to manoeuvre the swing doors, lift gates and stop planks, all at the same time, in order to achieve a flood of the polder.
The tide had been rising since early morning and in a little over two hours (13:20) it would be at its highest. The pressure on the closed flood doors was already too strong to allow any manoeuvring at this point so it was decided that François would return in the late evening with some men from his guard unit, open and lock the flood doors in their recesses and lift the doors.
Le Clément also repeated his order to François that he could only blow up the bridge across the Furnes Lock at the very last moment, which was when the Germans would have arrived at the second bridge, the one spanning the North Vaart Gates. At that moment all other structures, including the Spring Sluice, would have already been lost to the enemy.
The corporal of the detachment, Benoit Ballon heard from François that headquarters was planning to open the Spring Sluice and inundate the Nieuwendamme Creek. François apparently told him also that, being unfamiliar with the local situation and with the lockkeeper apparently gone, the engineer’s staff hoped to find someone who could give them more information on the drainage system of the region.
Upon hearing this Ballon soon got a hold of his new friend Henry Geeraert and inquired if he would be able to provide his superiors with details concerning the local waterways.
This was just what Henry wanted: that big institution called the Belgian Army asking for his advice! Promptly Corporal Ballon brought Henry in contact with François and their commanding officer, Captain Commandant Borlon. Henry was delighted.
As the Five-Bridges Road was under constant artillery fire the small party retreated to company headquarters in a small house not far from the locks. With the ordnance map on a shaky table, Borlon brought Geeraert up-to-date on the intentions of the division and revised with him all the details his engineers had worked out. Attentively Henry followed Borlon’s explanations. When Captain Commandant Borlon had finished Henry slowly felt pride bubbling up; after all, the army did seem to need him!
Did they know that some 600m east of the Ypres Lock a culvert under the river connected the creek with the polder south of the Yser? Borlon was surprised. This meant that, by inundating the creek, they would just flood their own lines if they didn’t bloc
k that escape route! Geeraert nevertheless reassured him: if they closed the small culvert with two sliding gates at White Bridge on the Bruges Road, some 200m from the Ypres Lock, they would prevent the flood water from invading the main polder south of the river. The small strip of land between the Bruges Road and the canalized river would not be greatly affected. Here the land was higher than north of the river, rising towards the Bruges Road, the natural watershed. The culvert itself could also be blocked, but for that they needed to drop stop planks in place. This would not only take a lot of precious time but it would also be extremely dangerous. In view of the tactical situation, the men working on the crest of the Yser levee would be exposed to direct enemy fire.
Henry Geeraert, wearing clogs, somewhere in the ruins of Nieuport.
Historical prints collection Callenaere-Dehouck.
A typical capstan as used in the Nieuport area in 1914.
Geeraert said that he knew how to operate the sluices and he reassured the officers that he would be able to find the tools to open the floodgates and the windlasses to lift the gate paddles. Obviously Henry was well aware of the wheeling and dealing of the lock people. When the officers proposed that the bargee should accompany them that night Geeraert agreed immediately and with a grin on his face.
In the discussions leading up to the issuing of the flood order it seems not only Major Holman wanted to get some protection for his troops. Major General Daufresne himself had hinted that this flood could be extended to include Mannekensvere and even go as far south as the exposed left flank of the Dixmude defence. But that was of course Captain Thys’ original proposal of 17 October. Daufresne had suggested cutting the levees of the old Yser branch and use the Vladsloo Vaart as a carrier for the floodwater further south. This way the land could be inundated as far as the Handzaeme Vaart on the outskirts of Dixmude.
But the proposal never got to High Command for two reasons: first, the engineers argued that it would take too much water and time, in fact the same argument Dingens had used towards the British officers ten days earlier, and secondly it would hamper a possible eastward offensive: in other words the ‘French Connection’.
Later in the day, presumably because of the proximity of the enemy, the order to cut some dykes in the creek to facilitate the flooding was withdrawn. Instead the artillery was put in charge of this operation.
After the war this new directive did create some confusion among authors. At some point it was argued that, in order to speed up the flooding, the Belgian artillery had breached the southern dyke of the Bruges Canal, a few hundred metres from the lock system. Engineer Captain Robert Thys nevertheless vehemently contradicted this statement and wrote in 1920 that the artillery ‘… has never intervened in the manoeuvering for the flood’.
There is no evidence to suggest that the dyke of the Bruges Canal - or any other ‘wet’ levee for that matter – was ever breached by the artillery. But given the tactical situation at the time and the topography it was indeed feasible for the artillery to ‘soften up’ one or two spots in the much closer dry Kruis Dyke (see map previous chapter) which acted as a subdivision of the polder.
In the evening Second Lieutenant François, Sergeant Henry and Corporal Ballon, accompanied by Henry Geeraert and fifteen soldiers of the guard detachment made their way in the dark to the Spring Sluice. The first manoeuvre to accomplish was to open the mitred flood doors. For that they needed the steel racks and wooden poles to turn the capstans. As he had said, Geeraert soon found all the tools needed. Under his guidance and that of the soldiers Cop and Van Belle, they opened the flood doors and locked them in their open position. Incidentally Frans Cop and Kamiel Van Belle were also bargemen.
Locking the doors once open was accomplished by flipping a heavy, cast iron gate hook into an eye at the outer end of the door. This hook was attached to an upright ring anchored in the blue stone top adjacent the gate recess. This detailed explanation might seem trivial to the reader but later on in the story we will run into a similar situation, but this time with quite different consequences.
In December 1914 the men of the inundation company received a Christmas parcel. That was an excellent moment to capture a few of them on film. From left to right: Henry Geeraert (now in army outfit), soldier Cop, Miss Fyfe (who presented the gifts), Captain Robert Thys and the soldiers Van Belle, Lequarré and Fulgoni.
Nieuport 1914–1918, R. Thys, 1922.
The decades old mystery of untimely closing lock doors solved! Here we see the cast-iron hook on the lock platform of the small East Vaart Lock. Just left of it the worn out groove and hole where once a previous ring and hook assembly stood.
Author’s photo archive.
At 23:00 the men were able to raise both gate paddles in the southern sluice channel. Ebb tide had been around 20:00 so once the doors started to move the seawater immediately began creeping inland. Since the water level in the creek was at +2.40m and the expected high water would be over two metres higher, the seawater would soon be rushing in like a torrent. Being too dangerous a place to stay the team did not wait to watch the results and returned to their quarters.
When a cold, autumn night fell over the polder no German infantryman had as yet been able to crawl up the right bank levee and see the Yser river. But that would soon change.
Chapter IX
The Tervaete Debacle
The sector line between the Second and First Army divisions was at km 4, just south of the Union Bridge. Southward from there the First Army was in charge of the defence of the river, up to km 10. Access from the east bank was across the Schoorbakke Bridge where the division still held a small bridgehead.
Past the Schoorbakke Bridge, the river started a wide, outward loop forming a vulnerable salient for the Belgians. At the top of the bend stood the km 10 marker, from where the Fourth Army Division took over the defence. It was then in charge up to km 16, 1,500m north-west of the town of Dixmude. In its sector, at the base of the so-called Tervaete Loop, lay the Tervaete Bridge as the point of passage for the division. Dixmude itself was occupied by the French fusiliers marins and a Belgian detachment.
During the night the Germans had tried to cross the Yser at a few points but each time the Belgians had been able to throw them back. Unfortunately, in the early morning of Thursday 22 October, still under cover of darkness, two battalions of the 26th Reserve Infantry Regiment/6th Reserve Division managed to sneak into the thinly occupied outposts of the First Army Division on the east bank. Not a shot was fired, no unnecessary noise made, only bayonets and knives were used. Some of the Germans managed to cross the river on a makeshift footbridge used at km 10 by the Fourth Army Division. Around 06:00 enemy patrols were already infiltrating the west bank defences.
By daybreak several enemy companies of both battalions had already crossed the river on hastily laid additional footbridges. Once the defenders noticed the scope of the incursion, fierce machine-gun and rifle fire erupted on both sides. Only crawling through the heavy mud or bending over and sloshing through the water-filled ditches could now prolong one’s life.
When, some time later, the news finally reached Furnes, the seriousness of the situation did not sink in at High Command. The message was not deemed alarming. It was considered something that could be handled by a local counter-attack.
The failure at General Headquarters to treat the initial reports of this intrusion more seriously can perhaps be explained by the lack of reliable communications. By then virtually all dispatches had to be sent by a messenger on foot to the nearest field telephone or carried further on horseback or by bicycle. This haphazard system certainly made for an unreliable transmission of messages. We should also not forget that the action took place in an isolated, exposed and waterlogged area of the front some 14km from Furnes.
At the same time just to the north at the Schoorbakke Bridge, the 4th de Ligne Regiment, still defending the small bridgehead, could ward off a strong assault by the Germans. In Nieuport and in Dixmude meanwhile unre
mitting enemy shelling kept up the pressure.
‘Collateral damage’ was perhaps not exactly the phrase used by the British at the time but the queen wrote that evening in her diary: The British shell Nieuport by mistake.’
In the narrow Nieuport bridgehead the 1st Regiment Chasseurs à pied and the 9th de Ligne Regiment of the Third Army Division took advantage of a realignment by the German troops to attack and advance their positions towards Lombartzyde and the Bamburgh Farm but in the end they were unable to reoccupy either one of these positions.
Meanwhile the British squadron off the coast was fearful of a submarine attack. One of the monitors had been attacked on the day of its arrival, but no submarine had been spotted since. The previous day a report had said that a German submarine was in Ostend but later the message proved to be false. The next day however German submarines attacked two of Admiral Hood’s ships. Due to the tactical inexperience with this new weapon on both sides the attempts failed and the subs eventually escaped. As a result of these encounters French warships had laid a protective minefield east of Ostend during the night. So in the morning the British monitors were back, escorted by the gunboat Bustard and together they kept up a curtain of fire on the German rearward batteries.
Around 11:00 General d’Urbal arrived at General Headquarters in Furnes. His message was not comforting for the Belgian staff. He declared anew his intention to launch an offensive from Nieuport, Dixmude and Ypres the next day. Overconfident, the tall, corpulent Frenchman predicted that this move would clear the Belgian front. As a result of this call-to-arms the battle weary Belgians had no choice but to again reverse their cautious defensive strategy and prepare for some kind of offensive. With the approval of the king, Colonel Wielemans drew up orders for the next day to recapture Lombartzyde and to hold on to the bridges at Schoorbakke, Tervaete and Dixmude at all costs.