by Paul Van Pul
The restructuring came at a price however. Between Nieuport and Dixmude, somewhat considered the ‘Belgian sector’ of the front, the French had now engaged their 42nd Infantry Division, three cavalry regiments, the Marine Fusiliers Brigade, two battalions of Senegalese and the régiment d’infanterie territoriale de Dunkerque.
Furthermore, on the extreme northern end of the front, between the coast and Nieuport, the French detachment of Colonel Costet consisted of one battalion of the 162nd Territorial Regiment, the 3rd Chasseurs d’Afrique and a battalion of the 6th Territorial Infantry Regiment.
At 14:00 a relatively insignificant incident happened in Furnes: three enemy shells exploded on the railway station, causing quite a few deaths. But its impact was far more psychological than physical: with the front line at least 8km away, let alone the closest enemy gun positions, the immediate threat of another German advance became perfectly clear to the army top brass assembled in the Flemish county town.
It is not inconceivable to assume that this incident – and perhaps others of the kind – once diligently reported by the French Mission in Furnes to the Generalissimo, convinced the French that in the end it would be safer to rely on the defences of the Dunkirk Fortified Place rather than pushing precious water to Nieuport.
In the morning the British flotilla was back in action off the coast. Admiral Hood had received a sizable reinforcement by the addition of the old battleship Venerable in which he now flew his flag. This London-class battleship, built in 1902, carried a formidable punch: four 305-mm guns, twelve 152-mm guns, sixteen 12-pounders and six 3-pounders.
The assigned targets included Westende, Slype and Lombartzyde. But by this time the Germans had so many field guns positioned in the dunes that Hood’s vessels could not venture within 4km of the coastline, thus greatly reducing their accuracy and field of fire. During the day the situation gradually grew worse: the Germans were able to zero in on the squadron with a heavy gun while one of the attending destroyers reported the sighting of a German submarine. This double threat forced Hood to retire to Dunkirk.
HMS Venerable
Author’s photo archive.
Breach in the dyke between the North Vaart (right) and the Furnes Canal (left) later in the war as a result of a too high water level in the inundated polder. In all probability this incident happened in the same spot as where the levee was blown up in the afternoon of 27 October, 1914.
Nieuport 1914–1918, R. Thys, 1922.
At first the French response to the Belgian request for flood water was positive. The Dunkirk authorities agreed to open the temporary dam in the Dunkirk Canal at the border and they promised to open the gates in the harbour at the next rising tide. Upon this news the engineers of the Second Army Division were ordered to blow up the canal dyke east of the railway as proposed earlier. Captain Grégoire and Second Lieutenant Adam subsequently installed 250kg of tonite in the levee separating the Furnes Canal and the North Vaart and sometime after 17:00 a sizable breach was created, thereby connecting both waterways. ‘French’ water could now enter the polder.
Why the military choose such a drastic and rather ineffective solution will perhaps forever remain a mystery. As mentioned earlier it is assumed that Cogge had made the proposal to the engineers. But then it is quite unlikely that he was unaware of the fact that not 200 metres away the East Vaart Lock connected the canal with the polder. That the opening of this lock would have been a lot more efficient, would have been less likely to attract the attention of the enemy and most importantly, would have allowed them to retain control of the operation is something Charles Cogge must have known. Was he perhaps emotionally too overpowered by the exceptional circumstances?
Going by his earlier reactions and his comprehensive knowledge of the subject, we suspect that Captain Thys did not agree with this turn of events. But his was only one voice and he had no decision in the matter. As we will see later the order to blow up the dyke most likely came from Captain Commandant Jamotte, the Head of the newly created Inundation Directorate. So possibly not Cogge, but Jamotte himself came up with this strange idea. The High Command was now desperate to get water in the polder.
The previous evening, at 17:00 the three engineers of the Roads & Bridges department had left Le Havre for Dunkirk. Their mode of transportation is unknown but it appears they were not in a hurry: for some inexplicable reason it took them 21.5 hours to cover the 316km that separate Le Havre from Dunkirk, or an average of 15km an hour.
There could be an explanation though: since the whole region from Le Havre to the front line in the north had been put under (French) military control it is quite possible that these civilians had to rely on Belgian military transport to travel to Furnes. This recently improvised shuttle system consisted of requisitioned vehicles that drove certain interconnected routes. So if a passenger arrived at the ‘terminal’ shortly after the car had left it was quite possible that the person would have to wait until the following day for the next departure towards Furnes.
Upon arrival, the next day at 14:30, the engineers first called on the office of Baron de Broqueville. The Minister of War had been forewarned by his colleague, the Minister of Public Works now in Le Havre, of their impending arrival but the Baron had left and was in Furnes at General Headquarters. So instead the engineers met with his secretary, Captain Commandant Louis Chabeau. Although intelligent and hard working, Chabeau was one of the most unbearable of officers in the close-knit de Broqueville ‘court’ and quite possibly he was not too happy with these civilian snoopers. The secretary advised the engineers to proceed to Furnes but first to contact the Chief Engineer of the Waterways in Dunkirk, Mr Bourgeois. It had been brought to his attention that High Command in Furnes had asked Bourgeois to urgently execute certain hydraulic manoeuvres on French soil.
Arriving at the office of the Chief Engineer the three men got a more detailed explanation of the manoeuvre requested by the Belgians. They were informed that Belgian High Command had decided to try to halt the German advance by inundating part of the Furnes-Ambacht region between Nieuport and Dixmude. Subsequently it had advised Bourgeois that it was impossible to operate the lock doors in Nieuport because of the enemy bombardment and perhaps even because of the close proximity of the Germans to the structures. As a result the Belgians had asked Dunkirk to open their seaward gates and push saltwater towards Furnes. Bourgeois declared that the operation would be executed, or was being executed, during the next rising tide. As next high tide in Dunkirk was at 19:15 the seawater must have already been rushing towards Furnes at the time of their meeting. ‘But,’ Bourgeois added, ‘this operation impeded or suspended certain measures being taken by the French Roads & Bridges Service to set certain strategic floods in the French Moères polder region.’
This declaration gave rise to a discussion in which it was agreed that the manoeuvre requested by Belgian High Command was an extreme measure that would have quite a slow effect – only exceptional circumstances could justify this action. Furthermore, from a technical point of view, the engineers agreed that the operation had a major drawback: the north side of the Dunkirk Canal not being embanked, the canal could only support a rise of one foot. Otherwise a large tract of land between the canal and the dunes, from Dunkirk to Nieuport, would be flooded unintentionally.
Apparently this statement was not quite true. According to Joseph Leper, who was director at the Furnes North Water during the Second World War, in 1944 the Germans ordered the water board to inundate the same polder, this time as a measure against an Allied invasion. For that reason the water level in the canal was subsequently raised over two feet whereby, between Adinkerke and the border, only twenty hectares – fifty acres – were accidentally flooded. At that time certainly on the Belgian side of the border the situation had remained unchanged since 1914.
The three Belgian engineers told Bourgeois that they would continue on to Furnes to investigate the matter and that they would return the following morning to report on the situat
ion. Leaving Dunkirk at 15:40 engineers Bourgoignie, Hainaut and Brichet then covered the 21km to Furnes in forty minutes. Baron de Broqueville not being available, they were met by Colonel Wielemans who in turn advised them to contact the Head of the Inundation Directorate, Captain Commandant Jamotte.
Jamotte, who was on an inspection mission along the Loo Canal, arrived shortly afterwards. From him the engineers learned that in fact the military did not want to submerge the land completely but that they rather wanted to soak the soil with water and make it waterlogged. This would hinder the movement of the enemy, hamper the relocation of guns and impede the supply of ammunition and other vital material. Perhaps, Jamotte said, it would be sufficient to fill the various vaarts and ditches to the brim, allowing for some local shallow depressions to fill with water. Eventually the same procedure could be repeated for the whole region east of the Loo Canal. For the time being though only the land between the railway embankment and the Yser river would be affected.
During his afternoon trip along the Loo Canal the Captain Commandant had verified that the doors of the flood locks on the Slopgat Vaart and the Steengracht were in working condition and that the stop planks on the culverts under the canal had been lowered. These measures were, of course, critical. If, in the present circumstances, the whole polder east of the Loo Canal was to be inundated the Belgians would need all the water they could get from Dunkirk. And this water could only be channelled through the Loo Canal and the locks on the Steengracht and the Slopgat Vaart. But to prevent that water from escaping back to the west, the culverts under the canal had to be closed beforehand.
Bourgoignie informed Jamotte about the meeting with Engineer Bourgois in Dunkirk. He also warned Jamotte that the water from Dunkirk had to be brought in cautiously in order to prevent cave-ins on the water face of the levees along the canal. Even the total collapse of a dyke segment was not inconceivable. The civil engineer was also of the opinion that the water influx would be slow as the three flood locks had a relatively small cross section and were quite far from the water intake. The lock of the East Vaart near Nieuport for instance was some 35km from the Dunkirk tidal water gates.
To counter this argument Jamotte answered that, if necessary, he planned to breach the southern dyke of the Furnes Canal just west of the East Vaart Lock by means of explosives.
When Bourgoignie indicated that the most direct and efficient manner to inundate the polder would be to lift the gate paddles of the North Vaart in the tidal bay in Nieuport, Jamotte responded that this structure at present was inaccessible. Therefore it had been decided to use the Spanish Lock instead.
Jamotte spoke of the failure at the lock the previous night but said that a new attempt would be made the following night. Since the situation on the Belgian front line had become extremely alarming High Command meanwhile had requested the help of the Dunkirk authorities.
Bourgoignie continued in his report in 1920:
After being informed about the inconvenience for the defence of Dunkirk of this flow of water from France to Belgium it is agreed that Commandant Jamotte will join us tomorrow morning at the office of the Chief Engineer Bourgois. He will then inform us about the result of the new attempts made at the Spanish Lock and we will talk the situation over together with Mr. Bourgois.
Apparently Chief Engineer Bourgoignie took the French point of view. From a pure tactical standpoint it seemed more logical for everyone, including a lot of well-meaning Belgians, to retreat within the prepared defence of Dunkirk. But this overlooked the constitutional consequences.
After their meeting with Jamotte the three engineers went on to meet Baron de Broqueville. As there was no lodging available in Furnes they left the town at 17:50 for Dunkirk where they arrived at 18:30.
A detail of the iron rack hooked to a vertical pin mounted at the top of the lock door in order to open it. On the platform the rack runs along a gear wheel mounted at the bottom of a capstan.
Author’s photo archive.
The paved road from Nieuport to Nieuport-Bains (today the Albert I Avenue) before the war. The local railway originally followed the railway track, which was closer to the Yser Channel. Only later, but still before the war, the narrow gauge railway would be moved next to the road.
Historical prints collection Callenaere-Dehouck.
Meanwhile Captain Thys was already back on the road. Around 16:00 Thys picked up Charles Cogge again at his home in Furnes. First they drove to the canal lock in Furnes in order to retrieve some spare racks from the office of lockmaster Kemp. These could come in handy at the Spanish Lock later that night. Then they drove to the local police station and continued on to General Headquarters where they met Colonel Wielemans and Captain Commandant Nuyten. They then went on to divisional headquarters in Wulpen where they picked up the lieutenants François and Rotsaerts. Since Second Lieutenant Adam had blown up the Pelican Bridge on the Furnes Canal near Nieuport, they were forced to take an alternate road to reach the Spanish Lock.
The Pelican Bridge was an important north/south link. That the bridge was destroyed is another indication that High Command did intend to inundate the whole Furnes-Ambacht polder. The only canal crossing left near Nieuport was now the railway, but this access was, for the time being, essential for the work being carried out by the engineers on the emergency dyke near the Koofhof Vaart.
Instead of following the Furnes Canal towards the Pelican Bridge they crossed the canal near Wulpen and headed for the village of Oost-Dunkerke. From here they drove parallel to the coast the 3km to the Groenendyke settlement and on to the Yser Mouth. By now they were getting close to enemy territory. They left the car at an isolated inn, most likely the tavern In den Vuurtoren [In the Lighthouse], between Nieuport-Bains and Nieuport, not far from the Yser Channel. From there it was only a mile hike to the lock. As it was getting late in the evening, they decided to rest at the inn and prepared some soup and meat for supper.
The inhabitants of the tavern, also farm folk, had apparently fled just before their arrival since there were potatoes still boiling on the stove. The men eagerly took advantage of this unexpected treat and quickly passed the hot pot around.
Being too early in the evening and to avoid any unnecessary activity in the vicinity of the lock Captain Thys decided they all should have some sleep. The driver of the motorcar was assigned to guard duty and to awake the group at 00:30. Thys and one of the lieutenants each laid down on the two available palliasses and Cogge made himself comfortable in an armchair by the stove. After a while the driver, being perched over a book he desperately tried to read by a flickering candle, nodded off. Fortunately the elderly Charles stayed awake.
At 00:15, after he had made a pot of coffee, Cogge woke everyone up. The men enjoyed the strong, steaming brew, then, close to 01:00, they took off accompanied by a corporal and a soldier carrying strong ropes, machetes, pickaxes and other equipment. Charles and the captain carried the small tools.
When, under an open sky and a full moon, they had almost reached the lock they met a gunnery captain with a crew and a 75-mm gun. Upon questioning him Thys found out that the officer, Philippe Tahon, had been sent by General Headquarters with written orders from Captain Commandant Jamotte to destroy the lock doors. This would of course be a disaster. Thys turned him away, as well as a lieutenant of the engineers who had been ordered, in case the destruction with the guns failed, to blow up the lock doors. Brute force would only compromise any flooding attempt. Once the doors were destroyed there would be no way to control the tidal stream and achieve a stable flood. Thys was confident this time his scheme would work.
A view from the dunes onto the cobblestone road from Nieuport-Bains to Nieuport (in the background). To the left, some hundred metres behind the greenery were both railways. Left and right of the road are rider trails. Far right a paved path for pedestrians.
Historical prints collection Callenaere-Debouck.
A groove in the hard stone wall between both flood and ebb doors was another
simple device to transform a navigation lock into an inundating lock. By lowering stop-planks in the grooves, either a salt water or a run-off water flood could be set.
Obviously Captain Commandant Jamotte was by now desperate to get water into the polder. After Thys had left on his expedition in the late afternoon, and engineer Bourgoignie was again en route for Dunkirk, word had arrived at High Command that the French would no longer provide seawater through Dunkirk. So only the Spanish Lock could now provide the salvation of the country.
Once at the lock, around 02:00, they got to work immediately. The soldiers dug a few foxholes on each side of the structure and the ropes were tied to the head of the flood doors. Rotsaerts and François blew up the iron rack that prevented one of the doors on the east bank from opening. Then came the anxious waiting for the rising tide to reach the vaart level. The flood doors were now open, held in their recesses by the ropes. The men huddled in their foxholes, the open end of the ropes tight in their cold hands.
Charles Cogge explained: ‘It was all fire, the sky was red and along the channel people were still fleeing. It was awful to hear all the noise, the crying, the lamenting and then the shooting and the explosions’
Captain Thys was lying on the freestone near the still closed set-doors. Occasionally he would measure the water level on both sides of the door.
‘Charles’, he would whisper, ‘it’s taking so long.’
‘Yes, yesterday the weather was rough, but today it’s calm. That could make a difference of two hours. But don’t worry, it will come.’