by Paul Van Pul
Turning away from a strictly military career was likely to have been because of his father’s ambition to electrify ‘his’1 railway from Matadi to Leopoldville.
As three major mountain rivers crossed the rail line this hydro-electric potential had persuaded Albert Thys that by building dams on these rivers he would be able to produce electricity to power his locomotives. And that was where his son’s engineering capabilities would come in handy.
Almost immediately Robert took off for the Congo to travel the railway and to start a preliminary study of the geography and hydrology of the region. He was a well-organized and dedicated engineer and he used a, by then, well developed invention as a tool in his investigation: a hand held camera to register his findings.
In the spring of 1913, just after being promoted to captain in the reserve forces, he married a charming young lady named Germaine Gillieaux and for their honeymoon the couple travelled to Norway. The trip in fact had a dual purpose: Robert would be able to study the Norwegian hydroelectric projects!
When, in the afternoon of the last day of July 1914, the Belgian Government mobilized its armed forces Robert Thys was in the country and the next day he arrived at his engineers’ unit, part of the Antwerp Garrison Army. Its mission was to prepare the defence of the south-eastern perimeter of the Antwerp Fortified Place. One of the many tasks was to initiate a planned flooding along the Nèthe river. Only ten days prior to the discussion in Long Street in Nieuport Thys had written in his field diary: ‘… 4 October I am sent to the town of Duffel to set a flood north of the Nèthe river by blowing up the dyke upstream from the bridge … the flood extends by itself north of the river and adds to the existing flooding along the south bank.’
The bridge on the Nèthe River in the town of Duffel before the war. This swing bridge was also a cable-stayed bridge as had been used in Nieuport on the original Ypres Lock, replaced in 1877. With the First World War cable-stayed bridges disappeared from the landscape until they were ‘rediscovered’ in the second half of the twentieth century. For large spans they are now more popular than suspension bridges.
Historical prints collection Renée Beever
Having made the retreat from Antwerp Thys had arrived in the Furnes-Ambacht region together with the Second Army Division. With the reorganization of the army he had been transferred to the engineers’ battalion of this division on 14 October. Because of his technical background Robert Thys was the obvious choice to look after the drainage system and transform it into a weapon against the enemy.
In the French camp General Foch, who had not yet been advised by the Generalissimo of his proposal to postpone the Dunkirk flood, was uncertain about the situation in the north. The previous evening he had said to Tardieu: ‘I see things far less clear than on the [Battle of the] Marne river. Meanwhile, let’s inundate! Since you have been there already, return there once more!’
So in the morning Tardieu crossed the border into Belgium again to check on the progress of the preparations for the Dunkirk flood. In the late afternoon, accompanied by two Belgian lieutenants, he went to watch the rumbling water from atop a hillock.
Unfortunately, in his book published in 1939 André Tardieu was not more specific. A few questions arise, among others the rather improbable existence of a hummock in this flat landscape. It must be said that his book was written long after the facts and after a brilliant political career. Possibly he talked about the stretch of dunes west of the village of Adinkerke, the Cabourg Domain2 near the border and the ring canal of the Moeren Polder. As we will see soon, he was quite likely supervising, as Foch had asked him to do, the French engineers while they were preparing the inundation of the Moeren Polders.
What is important to us is that his observations were certainly unrelated to the Belgian plans. The overall situation on the Belgian front was now extremely critical, especially between Ramscappelle and Pervyse. Not only had the troops of the First and Second Army Division pulled back from the Great Beaverdyke Vaart in a disorderly fashion but they also did not seem to reorganize on the railway levee. Some units were even reported as far away as Furnes, 8km from the railway. At 10:30 General d’Urbal cabled to Foch that his territorials, who only stayed in line when the regular units did so too, would lose their hold if they saw the Belgian soldiers give way. Luckily around noon the situation was restored along the railway levee by inserting a couple of battalions of the 42nd taken from the Nieuport sector. Later on, west of Pervyse two French cavalry regiments, the 6th Hussards and the 8th Chasseurs, arrived as a reserve for General Grossetti.
But the Belgian artillery was in bad shape. One by one the guns fell silent. They had been in continuous action since the beginning of the battle. The intensive use and lack of maintenance was now taking its toll on the gun barrels and carriages while the supply of shells was running out. Without fire support the infantry would not be able to hold on to the railway embankment, or any other line for that matter.
Both cavalry divisions, still in reserve west of the Loo Canal, were kept at high alert ‘horses bridled and saddled, ready to be mounted’. At 10:10 a brigade was ordered towards Furnes to occupy the bridgehead on the Loo Canal while the battalion of cyclists was sent to the Steenkerke bridgehead. The men and horses of the Second Cavalry Division were kept close to the Loo bridgehead. Indeed, High Command feared the worst.
Belgian Cavalry somewhere in the field at the start of the war.
Onze Helden, R. Lyr, 1922.
Although the British monitors had been bombarding the German positions in front of Nieuport since early morning, the collapse of the centre was a bad omen to the king. Contrary to his usual practice he returned to La Panne shortly after lunch and told the queen to leave at once.
The fighting was now drawing dangerously close. If Dunkirk pushed ahead with its flood and the Germans advanced on Furnes the queen and her small escort risked being cut off from the army and its protection. They would be trapped in the dunes.
The British Admiralty for its part feared a German landing between Nieuport and La Panne. The stubborn resistance of the western powers in Flanders could prompt German High Command to outflank the land battle and sail an army in between the Yser River and Dunkirk. Besides, with the fear of an approaching stalemate this might be the perfect time for the Imperial Hochseeflotte to engage the British Fleet in an all-out North Sea battle.
Of course there was the alternative Belgian plan for a large flood to be set east of Furnes that would push all Belgian troops onto an 8km wide strip of national soil. The modest royal refuge would then be too close to the front line. Whatever happened, the future looked definitely grim and frighteningly uncertain. But where was there for the queen to go?
The appearance of the Couthof Mansion in Proven has not changed over all these years.
Author’s photo archive.
Unfortunately not many details are as yet known on this episode and its relation to the Battle of the Yser River. From excerpts of Queen Elisabeth’s diary that have been published, we know that she first went to Watou, 8km west of Poperinghe, then to Proven, a few kilometres north. There she stayed at the Couthof Château for the night. Both villages were close to the French border and apparently the field hospital from Furnes had moved to Poperinghe also. One would expect the queen to have left La Panne and crossed the border into France. On the contrary, she had skirted the border and moved back inland.
Since an evacuation of the army through Nieuport harbour towards Great Britain was now out of the question, it looks as if at this point the king contemplated, in case of a collapse of the Yser front line, to pull his remaining forces out of this sector and move them southward to link up with the BEF now deployed in and around Ypres. This would also explain the king’s sudden visit to the British Field Marshal in St Omer that same evening.
What did the king and queen discuss that day at lunchtime in La Panne? With some documents still not accessible to historians, we can only guess. But actions on the ground give away inte
ntions.
With still that little bit of hope left, the king knew his spouse was not to leave the country. They decided that she would drive south, stay close to the border and try to find any suitable lodging west of Ypres. There she would be close to and behind the British lines. For the time being she would be safer on that part of the front than in the unstable situation of the Furnes area.
The queen wrote in her diary that day: ‘They will open all the locks to inundate.’
In the Dixmude bridgehead the men were at the end of their physical and mental resistance. During the day two Senegalese battalions and a battalion of the Fifth Army Division could relieve only the most exhausted troops.
At 15:15 Colonel Brécard wired an alarming message to the Generalissimo:
The Belgian Army, entirely disorganized, has not a single well-structured unit in the fighting line. Its artillery lacks all ammunition.
Belgian High Command intended, at 15:00, to order a retreat and meant to include the French troops (42nd Division).
I absolutely opposed the retreat of our troops that are not under immediate command of the Belgians.
Moreover, Belgian High Command declares that it is not possible to set a flood of the Yser as was planned yesterday. (EMA: #3379)
Here two questions remain:
A.
If the French opposed any retreat of their own troops, why did the last brigade of the 42nd Infantry Division on the left flank, evacuate the Nieuport bridgehead, on the right bank of the Yser, that night?
B.
Why would a flood south of Nieuport be impossible all of a sudden? Perhaps there was a misunderstanding: as long as the extent of the Dunkirk flood was not known the order to inundate in front of the Belgian line could not be given.
Shortly before Brécard sent his distressing note to Joffre, Captain Thys was at General Headquarters asking Colonel Wielemans to authorize him to motor to Dunkirk to investigate the actual extent of the French flood. If indeed the Belgians wanted to retreat behind the Loo Canal, then they needed every available square metre of dry land west of Furnes. And it was of course that area that was threatened by the flooding around Dunkirk.
The Deputy Chief of Staff agreed but to give the mission an official character he ordered Staff Captain Commandant Prudent Nuyten to accompany Thys into France. Arriving at the border they fortunately discovered that the French engineers had dammed up the Furnes-Dunkirk Canal at the border and had thus far only inundated an isolated polder east of Dunkirk called les Petites Moëres. With this promising news they did an about-turn and headed back for Belgian territory.
The Dunkirk Canal before 1914.
Historical prints collection Callenaere-Dehouck.
Shortly before their return into Furnes, at 18:00, Joffre had at last made up his mind on the Dunkirk flood. He cabled his answer to Foch: ‘I approve of your proposals concerning the flood.’
With this decision the threat of a French flood in the Belgian rear had finally subsided. As soon as the news reached Furnes Colonel Wielemans ordered Thys to proceed with the flood between the river and the railway.
According to Robert Thys it seems that at General Headquarters only Wielemans and Maglinse understood that it would take many high tides to obtain a sufficiently high water level – was this perhaps with regard to the large Yser River/Loo Canal project – and that it was important not to destroy the lock doors?
Thys ends with the telling remark: ‘A long discussion on the subject.’
In the evening Captain Thys drove to Cogge’s house in order to ask him if he would be willing to come along on the nightly trek to the Spanish Lock. Upon arrival Thys found out from Cogge’s wife, Mietje, that he was at Mrs Allewaert’s. She was the lady that had fled to Paris. Charles and Mietje lived at Claeyssensoever but due to the approaching hostilities Mrs Allewaert, who owned a beautiful mansion in the Zwarte Nonnenstraat [Black Nuns Street], had asked them to take care of her house during her absence.
When Captain Thys invited Mietje to take a seat in his car to drive over there the good woman categorically refused. She would not have anything to do with such a newfangled invention and walked in front of the car towards Mrs Allewaert’s residence.
Upon hearing what the captain had in mind Charles agreed but Mietje started lamenting. Her elderly husband had already made two dangerous excursions with the military and, suffering from bronchitis, he had bouts of severe coughing. She feared that at the lock, in the middle of the night and almost under the nose of the Germans he might attract the enemy’s attention and risk being killed. Apparently their daughter Clementine was also present, vigorously supporting her mother’s views. There was nothing for Captain Thys to do but to return to General Headquarters and to consult with Colonel Wielemans. With the help of a few soldiers Thys could indeed easily open the lock doors but in all the mayhem the brave supervisor was the only one who would be able to figure out the most practical way to get to the disused and isolated lock on the west side of the city.
After talking to the Deputy Chief Thys returned to the Cogge family with the promise that Charles would get 2,000 francs and a medal for services rendered.3 Mietje, presumably realizing the futility of her protest, finally gave in.
In the afternoon at the Goose Foot, Second Lieutenant François was informed that he had to follow the orders of the French Lieutenant Colonel Claudon in connection with the destruction of the Furnes Lock Bridge. Shortly thereafter Claudon himself appeared and ordered François to prepare for the demolition.
While performing this mining operation some tense moments passed when a nervous soldier, unrolling the electrical wires, inadvertently pulled the detonator from the charge. But undeterred by intense enemy bombardment, Sergeant Henry still managed to crawl under the bridge and restore the situation. Once everything was ready and François wanted to proceed with the destruction, a messenger from Claudon arrived and warned him to wait until the Colonel himself showed up. When this eventually happened Claudon told François that upon an order from High Command he should wait until midnight before blowing up the bridge. As a result François had the mining tools collected again. At night the three battalions of the 42nd Division that had remained in the Nieuport bridgehead at last evacuated their positions and withdrew across the lock system. With Lieutenant Colonel Claudon at his side François finally destroyed the swing-bridge at 23:00.
Lieutenant François did a good job when blowing up the swing bridge on the Furnes Lock on 26 October, 1914. The iron structure ended up on the gate side of the lock, out of sight and out of use for the enemy. The bridge was not wide: one lane for vehicular traffic with a raised pedestrian path on either side. It is doubtful nevertheless if this destruction would have held up a determined enemy long enough.
Nieuport 1914–1918, R. Thys, 1922.
With this action any hope of a fast and reliable flood via the wide North Vaart evaporated. It must be said though that, because of the German advance south-east of Nieuport, the bridgehead had become untenable. Nevertheless to the Belgians the bridgehead was vital in the control of the water management and flooding of the whole region. Conversely France’s main concern was Dunkirk which had its own access to seawater.
Back in Le Havre, where the Belgian government and most of its administration was now residing, something was reverberating concerning the proposed flood in Belgium. Baron de Broqueville, still in Dunkirk, had cabled George (Joris) Helleputte the Minister of Public Works, informing him of the project and the complaint by the military that all personnel of Roads & Bridges had disappeared. As a result the minister ordered three of his engineers, Mr Bourgoignie, Mr Hainaut and Mr Brichet 4 to travel to Dunkirk and contact the Minister of War.
In the early evening, while Robert Thys was heading towards Furnes to contact Charles Cogge, King Albert accompanied by his advisor, Galet, and the British Colonel Bridges, left the town en route for the French border. It was an extreme gesture by the Royal Commander-in-Chief to leave Belgian soil at such a crit
ical moment in the struggle for the nation. But so much was now at stake that a visit to the Commander of the BEF in St Omer did warrant the risk.
Not 15km inside French territory, the motorcar passed through the town of Bergues. At a roadblock, not far from Fort Suisse, nervous French territorials asked for the password. Captain Commandant Galet, embarrassed at his ignorance, was forced to reveal the identity of his royal companion and fortunately the baffled sentries let them proceed without further inconvenience. The 25km drive through wet darkness was mostly spent in silence. Occasionally Colonel Bridges would divert the gloomy thoughts of both his companions by briefing them on Field Marshal Sir John French, the man they were about to meet for the first time.
Sir John French was a soldier’s general, popular with the troops. Tom Bridges, who had worked under the field marshal since the outbreak of the war, could not suppress a smile when he elaborated on the ebullient character of his short, mercurial superior. Most of the time though, it seemed the king and Galet did not hear Bridges’ stories.
Around 20:00 the car with its royal passenger arrived at the outskirts of St Omer. The shadows of the many cobble stoned streets with manor houses didn’t catch the attention of the Sovereign as he was too absorbed by the tremendous uncertainties his country was facing.
The Headquarters of Field Marshal Sir John French in St Omer in 1914, as it looks today. An apparently rather run-down manor house that doesn’t even have a commemorative plate to recall that for one and a half years during the Great War this was the BEF’s headquarters.
Author’s photo archive.