The frontline during the
Battle of the Yser stretched from Nieuwpoort in the west towards Diskmuide in
the east. The Belgian troops (65.000 to
85.000 soldiers) were exhausted and low on ammunition after two months
of retreat. France reinforced the Belgians with 6.000 Fusiliers Marins (Naval Fusiliers) and an
infantry division. They were supported from the sea by a naval force (3 monitors: Severn, Humber and Mersey)
under command of the British Admiral Horace Hood of the British Royal Navy.
They bombarded the German soldiers if they were in reach. The German forces
were under command of Albrecht, Duke of Württemberg. His 4th army
consisted of 12 divisions. The total number of soldiers is not known.
HMS Humber
HMS Severn
HMS Mersey
The Belgian forces had made
fortified positions along the Yser and also along a sloped railway between
Nieuwpoort and Diskmuide. The first line of defense was situated from Westende,
Nieuwendamme, Sint-Pieterskapelle, Leke and Vladslo. Outposts were situated in
Lombardsijde, Mannenkensverre, Schore, Keiem and Beerst. 3 bridgeheads were
created in Nieuwpoort, Schoorbakke and Diskmuide. The German upper command
wanted to take the harbors of Calais and Duinkerke. By occupying these harbors
they would break the connection between France and Great-Brittain. After the
occupation of the harbors, the German soldiers would destroy the French and
English forces in the North of France. But first they had to take out the
Belgium troops. The German soldiers had two options. The first option was to take
one of the three intact Yserbridges, cross them and fight their way towards the
harbors. The other option was to capture Nieuwpoort or Diskmuide and attack the
British and France forces in the rear.
On 16 October 1914, the city
of Diksmuide was attacked. Belgian and French forces under Colonel Alphonse
Jacques could defend the city but they had to endure heavy losses.
On the 18th of
October the German forces attacked along a line stretching from Nieuwpoort down
to La Bassée in France. The outposts of Schore, Keiem and Mannekensvere are
seized by the Germans. The ships of the Royal Navy obstructed the Germans from
capturing Lombardsijde.
On the 19th of
October the Germans can occupy Keiem. For the second time, the German
infantrymen tried to take Lombardsijde while the German artillery is firing on
Nieuwpoort. The dunes surrounding Lombardsijde are of great strategically
importance because artillery placed in the dunes could fire in the length on
the front (higher change of hits).
One day later the Germans
occupied Lombardsijde. The Belgian forces retreated but are still on the right
bank of the Yser. After three days of fighting the Germans still hadn’t reach
the Yser.
On the 21st of
October, the German artillery started to fire. About 20 km of front was shot by
400 pieces of German artillery with calibers varying between 77 to 210 mm. In
Diskmuide there are 20 to 30 hits per minute. The Belgian artillery answered
with the fire of 350 cannons with a caliber of 75 mm and 24 cannons with a
caliber of 150 mm. They had to seize fire due to a lack of ammunition. Diksmuide
is again attacked by the Germans. But they could not capture the city. The
Belgian general Dossin realized he couldn’t defend the front against the
numerical supremacy of the Germans. He commanded that the polder of
Nieuwendamme should be flooded. This was possible because of the special way
the water is canalized in the Westhoek. In Nieuwpoort all the different
channels come together in the so called Ganzepoot.
It is a network of scuppers and sluices. Normally this complex would protect
the polders by closing the sluices at high tide. At low tide the sluices are
opened and the excess of water can flow towards the sea. Because the Belgian
general isn’t used to the different channels and sluices, he called in the help
of a fishermen of Nieuwpoort called Hendrik Geeraert. He also knew where the
different tools, used to open and close the sluices are stored. During the
night, Geeraert and a few soldiers opened the scuppers of the ‘Springsas’. As a result, 3 kilometers
of land between the right bank of the Yser and the channel of Passendaele are
flooded.
On the 22nd of
October, the German emperor Wilhelm II arrived in Roeselare. Lombardsijde is
reconquered by the Belgian forces. It took four days of heavy fighting before
the German troops could drive the allies back and reach the banks of the Yser. The
Germans were able to establish a small bridgehead on the other side of the
river. The 2nd Belgian line of defense is threatened and the German
troops are preparing to push through. The French high command planned to flood
large parts of their territory as a defensive measure. This would have put the
Belgian army in the impossible choice of being trapped between the flood and
the Germans, or else abandoning the last part of unoccupied Belgium. The plan
was postponed since the Belgian army itself had started preparations to flood
the area between the Yser and its tributary canals.
24 October, the German army
deployed 4 bridges for infantry and 3 bridges for artillery across the Yser. In
Diksmuide, the German soldiers again attacked during the night. They were mowed
down by machine guns. And again the Germans failed to capture Diksmuide.
On the 25th of
October plans for inundation started to take form. The Belgian forces retreated
and made a line of defense at the sloped railway of Nieuwpoort-Diksmuide. This
slope would be excellent to defend because the Belgian soldiers would have a
lot of protection while the Germans would have to move over a flat terrain
without any cover. Also, during inundation the frontline would still be
elevated above the water. But there was one problem before they could flood the
polders: the Belgian generals didn’t expect to defend themselves at the Yser.
Therefore the general staff didn’t know anything about the different channels
in the Westhoek and their drainage towards the sea. The lockkeepers of the
Ganzepoot were send home on the 19th of October and nobody knew
where they were. Karel Cogge, head of the Noordwatering
(his task was to coordinate the drainage of water in a
part of the Westhoek) was asked to come to the general staff and discuss
the possibility of flooding the land between the railway and the Yser. Cogge
wanted to use the sluice ‘Overlaat van
Veurne-Ambacht’ but this was not possible because the German troops were
way to close to this sluice. He was ordered to use the ‘Kattensas’. This was an old sluice that wasn’t used for more than
35 years. At 4 o’clock in the afternoon, the Belgian forces started to close the
passages under the railway and to make new dams. This was done because they
didn’t want to flood their own trenches.
A day later, a part of the
Belgian forces retreated towards the railway because the inundation was on the
way. On the night of 26 October, Robert Thys, captain of the 2nd
battalion engineers, together with Karel Cogge tried to open the Kattensas. But they failed because the
rising water caused the lock gates to close. The next night the maneuver was
successful but the Kattensas was too
small and not enough water could be let through. Cogge predicted that it would
take three more days before enough water had gone through the Kattensas to flood the entire area. The
flooding was necessary because the Belgian army couldn’t withstand the constant
pressure of the Germans. Also the material was almost broken. The Belgian had
to use French ammunition for cannons that were made in Germany. Because of
this, almost the 50% of all the cannons were broken. Also the total amount of
ammunition was extremely low: only 100 à 150 shells were available for each
cannon.
From the 27th
until the 29th the Germans lowered the pressure because they wanted
to consolidate their positions on the left side of the Yser. Their artillery
was still firing on Nieuwpoort, Ramskapelle, Pervijze and Diksmuide but at a
much lower rate of fire. During this short break, the wounded were evacuated,
divisions were reorganized and new trenches were dug while the old trenches
were repaired. Food and ammunition was supplied to the front. On the 28th
of October the water started to rise in the channels but it wasn’t enough to
stop the Germans.
On the 29th of October, the Germans started
a new offensive. The emperor was still overseeing the operation from his
headquarter in Tielt. German infantry tried to take the area between
Booltshoeke and Pervijze. The Belgian soldiers stopped the attack and the
Germans retreated. The Belgian forces, heavily outnumbered (1 to 6), needed a miracle to
withstand the Germans. The King and his generals decided they had to set
everything at stake. Cogge was ordered to use the ‘Overlaat van Veurne-Ambacht’. This sluice was in no man’s land and
it was risky to go there. At half past 7 in the evening Hendrik Geeraert, who helped
during the first inundation on 21st of October, captain Umé and a
few soldiers tried to open the sluice. They were successful and during the
following nights they kept on opening and closing the sluice during high tide.
On the 30th of October the German artillery
opened fire and the infantry attacked along the whole railway. The German
emperor was waiting in Tielt until the message of victory would come. The Belgian
line of defense at the railway was penetrated at the villages Pervijze and
Ramskappelle. Belgian soldiers supported by French soldiers and even soldiers
from Algeria counterattacked at Ramskappelle. The German soldiers tried to push
the attack but were stopped by heavy fire from the French and Belgian troops
and from the British Navy. At 8 o’clock in the evening the sluices were opened
again. The water enters the polders and a stroke of land between the railway
and the Yser is covered by water. The German higher command thinks that the
water will go away in the following hours but it kept on rising. The cold water
made it hard to move and the German trenches between the railway and the Yser
are flooded. The Germans left there trenches between the Yser and the railway
and retreat behind the Yser. The German emperor leaves demoralized the front.
The battle of the Yser comes to a halt on 31 October. Around Ypres the fighting
continued and ten thousands of British, French and German soldiers lost their
lives for only a few meters of dirt.
making a dam
Railway in Ramskappelle
situation
18-21 October (dotted line is railway, purple line is frontline, green is German
troops)
Situation
22-30 October
Situation after 30 October
Ganzepoot
One of the sluices and Hendrik Geeraert
Karel Cogge
Hendrik Geeraert
On 10 November 1914, the Germans occupied Diskmuide.
Two days later, it started to snow. Soldiers started to dig trenches where they
hided for the cold and enemy fire. The frontline is settled and won’t change
much in the next three years of war. As part of the 100 Days Offensive (started on 8th
of August 1918) the front at the Yser is moved. On the 16th
of October 1918, the Belgian troops move out and on the 17th of
October they recapture Bruges.
The inundation created a feeling of safety for the
soldiers. However this feeling was incorrect. During the night of 15 January
1916, Belgian soldiers suddenly saw three German soldiers in their trenches.
The Belgians quickly overpowered the enemy soldiers and questioned them. The
German had used special designed swimming suits out of canvas, tar and rubber.
These suits protected the soldiers against the cold water. The imprisoned
soldiers confessed that other German soldiers were being trained to swim
through the cold water and to capture the Belgian trenches. However, no other
swimmers were caught in the next two years.
It is striking that the Germans didn’t tried to stop
the inundation. It is plausible that they thought the risen water level was
caused by the rain and that, when it would stop with raining, the water level
will go down. They also used old Belgian cards. On these cards, it was
indicated that the polders were above sea level.
During the entire war the Belgian forces had to repair
the sluices and had to maintain the inundation. Captain Thys created the company
‘Sapeurs-Pontonniers’. They repaired
and maintained the Ganzepoot. The
company consisted of 3 pelotons and 3 sections of divers. At the end of the war
they lost 27 soldiers, 50 soldiers were wounded and 143 were affected by gas.
repairs carried out
Captain Thys on the right and a diver on the left
The Belgian King Albert I stayed in Belgium during the
whole war, commanding his troops. After the war he was seen as a hero and he
was called the king-knight or the king-soldier. He also changed his last name
from ‘Saksen-Coburg-Gotha’ to ‘van België’ (of
Belgium). He did this because a lot of Belgian citizens
correctly linked this name to Germany.
Nieuwpoort that was under constant heavy fire from the
Germans during the first days of the Battle of the Yser, was completely rebuilt
after the First World War. In honor of King Albert I and the Belgian forces in
World War I, a monument was created at the right shore of the Yser, just
outside Nieuwpoort Stad. There are also some silent witnesses around Nieuwpoort
and in the rest of the Westhoek, in the form of bunkers, memorials and
cemetries. Scattered over the Westhoek, there are war cemeteries. They vary in number
of buried soldiers. The largest Commonwealth cemetery is in Passendaele, called
Tyne Cot. It is the largest cemetery
for Commonwealth forces in the world, for any war. The cemetery grounds were
assigned to the United Kingdom in perpetuity by King Albert I of Belgium in
recognition of the sacrifices made by the British Empire in the defense and
liberation of Belgium during the war. In Tyne Cot, there are 11.594 soldiers
buried of which 8.367 are unnamed. The biggest war cemetery for German soldiers
can be found in Menen, called Menen
German war cemetery. There are 47.864 soldiers buried. In Menen you can also
find the Menin Gate Memorial to the
Missing (or the Menenpoort).
It is dedicated to the British and Commonwealth soldiers who were killed in the
Ypres Salient of World War I and whose graves are unknown. The names of 54.896
Commonwealth soldiers who died during the battles around Ypres but whose bodies
have never been identified or found are inscribed on the stone of the Hall of Memory. On completion of the
memorial, it was discovered to be too small to contain all the names as
originally planned. An arbitrary cut-off point of 15 August 1917 was chosen and
the names of 34.984 soldiers missing after this date were inscribed on the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing instead. It was unveiled on 24 July 1927.
Every day at 8 o’clock in the evening, buglers from the local fire brigade
close the road which passes under the memorial and sound the "Last Post". Except for the
occupation by the Germans in World War II when the daily ceremony was conducted
at Brookwood Military Cemetery, in Surrey, England, this ceremony has been
carried on uninterrupted since 2 July 1928. On the evening that Polish forces
liberated Ypres in the Second World War, the ceremony was resumed at the Menin
Gate despite the fact that heavy fighting was still taking place in other parts
of the town. The road that passes through the Gate was one of the roads that
got the soldiers to the front of Ypres. To this day, the remains of missing
soldiers are still found in the countryside, mostly during building work or
road-mending activities. The remains receive a proper burial in one of the war
cemeteries and if they are identified, their names are removed from the Menin
Gate. Also unexploded ammunition is still found. Mostly by farmers who are
plowing their land. They call it the “ijzeren
oogst” or the “Iron harvest”. Iron
harvest discovered by farmers is carefully placed around field edges, or in
gaps in telegraph poles, where it is regularly collected by the Belgian army
for disposal by controlled explosion at a specialist centre near Houthulst.
More memorials and museums can be found spread over the entire Westhoek. If you
are interested in these memorials and want to visit these, I would advise to
first go to the In Flanders Fields Museum.
This is a museum in Ypres dedicated to the Great War. Here you will find all
the information you need and it is even possible to search for family member
who might have fought in the Westhoek.
King Albert I monument
Tyne Cot
Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing
Menin Gate at the start of the war
Iron harvest, Stokes trench mortar shell from World War I left in a telegraph pole for disposal
END OF LA DEUXIÉME PARTIE
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