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THE BELGIAN FRONT

AND ITS NOTABLE FEATURES


BY
CAPTAIN WILLY BRETON
OF THE BELGIAN ARMY


_Translated from the French_


LONDON:
CHATTO & WINDUS
MCMXVIII

_Price Sixpence net_


THE BELGIAN FRONT

AND ITS NOTABLE FEATURES


[Illustration: VIEW OF FRONT LINE THROUGH THE FLOODS]


_The illustrations are from photographs taken by the Photographic
Service of the Belgian Army Command_




THE BELGIAN FRONT

AND ITS NOTABLE FEATURES.


THE BELGIAN ARMY'S ACTIVITIES SINCE THE BATTLE OF THE YSER.

Everyone knows how severely the Belgian Army was tested in the initial
stages of the campaign. Caught unawares by the war while in the midst of
re-organisation, it had to struggle alone, for long weeks on end,
against forces greatly superior in both numbers and equipment, suddenly
hurled against it in accordance with a deliberate and carefully planned
scheme of attack.

Yet the Belgian Army bravely faced the enemy, grimly determined to
fulfil its duty to the last, and at once aroused enthusiasm by its
heroic resistance at Liège, from August 8 onwards, to the onset of
several army corps. On the 12th the troops emerged victoriously from the
bloody engagements at Haelen; and not till the 18th, and then only to
escape being overwhelmed by the ever-rising flood of invasion, did the
Belgian Army abandon its positions at La Gette and fall back on Antwerp,
the national stronghold in which would be concentrated the whole of the
country's powers of opposition. Its retreat was covered by rearguards
which fought fiercely, especially at Hautem Ste. Marguerite. Namur,
threatened since August 19th, fell to the enemy on the 23rd, after
several of its forts had been destroyed by a terrific bombardment and
the complete investment of the position made further resistance
impossible. By a desperate effort, some 12,000 men of the 4th Division
escaped the assailant's grip and succeeded in reaching France in the
first instance, and Antwerp subsequently.

The army, left to its own devices in the great fortress which it still
hoped to make impregnable, continued the stubborn fight against its
implacable foe, though it had suffered cruel losses and the Germans had
initiated a reign of terror in the invaded provinces. It did everything
possible to assist the Allies against the common enemy; first, by a
sortie, made while the battle of the Somme was in progress; and then by
a second vigorous and timely attack which coincided with the immortal
victory of the Marne. For four days (September 9-13, 1914) the Belgian
troops hurled themselves on the strong German positions facing Antwerp,
drove back the masking forces in them, and prevented three whole
divisions from going to the support of von Kluck's hard-pressed army.
The part played by the Belgian Army in the battles of the Marne was,
although an indirect one, very important and effective--as the Germans
themselves have admitted.[A]

While engaged in continually harassing the enemy and also putting the
fortress into a proper condition for defence, the Belgian Army was
preparing, in the closing days of September, for a fresh and vigorous
offensive to be directed chiefly against the left wing of the German
containing forces, when it was confronted by a pressing danger which
completely altered the aspect of affairs.

The Germans, having massed before Antwerp all the huge resources at
their disposal, decided to attack the Belgian Army as it lay by
breaching the defences of the fortress. On September 29th the first
shells from the mammoth guns fell on the forts of Waelhem and
Wavre-Sainte-Catherine, doing fearful damage, and from that moment the
fate of Antwerp was sealed. The Belgian commander saw this clearly; and
one of the things most greatly to his credit will always be that in
these tragically momentous hours he was able to keep a stout heart and
make the manly decision to abandon a position which he could not hold,
in order to save his fighting army and continue the struggle elsewhere
without respite or signs of weakening.

To cover the operations of evacuating from Antwerp all supplies that
could be moved, and to ensure the army's retreat towards the coast, the
Belgian troops, though exhausted and half-dead with fatigue, fought
steadily for eight days under a fire of unprecedented violence.

The order for a general retreat was not given till the night of October
6-7, by which time the limit of resistance had been reached. Only one
narrow avenue still lay open--between the Scheldt on the one side and
the Dutch frontier and the sea on the other. Protected at first by a
flanking guard (a cavalry division and two infantry divisions) and later
by a rear-guard of two cavalry divisions, the field army managed by a
miracle to reach the Yser, without leaving anything behind in the hands
of the enemy during that epic retreat in which the exhausted troops had
to cover more than 100 kilometres of congested roads.

The Yser line had not been designedly selected. But at the moment it
happened to be the nearest line on which the Belgian Army could link up
with the Allied forces now gradually advancing northwards along what has
been termed "the sea-board route." Prodigies of valour and endurance
were still needed to make the continuous front a fact and to shatter the
enemy's efforts in the great battle of Flanders.

It is not my intention to recapitulate here the ensuing changes of
fortune. The first act of the drama was, as everybody knows, the
desperate fight which the "Belgian Army of ragamuffins"--now reduced to
80,000 men, with but 48,000 rifles and 350 guns--put up on the Yser
during the last two weeks of October, against 150,000 Germans--mostly
fresh troops--employing at least 500 guns of all calibres. Except for a
reinforcement of 6,000 French marines, it was at first unsupported, yet
it maintained an heroic resistance for eight days, fired by the
passionate appeal and the example of its king. After October 23rd it had
the help of the first detachments from the French division under
Grossetti, and kept up the fight for another week with almost superhuman
energy.

On the 31st the Germans were driven from Ramscapelle, and obliged to
give ground before the inundation, whose dark, stealthy waters slowly
but surely invaded the low-lying plain between the river and the
Nieuport-Dixmude railway.

The battle of the Yser was then practically over. It had ended in
victory, and the direct road to Dunkirk and Calais was barred to the
enemy. He had suffered huge losses; but those of the Belgian Army also
had been heavy enough--they were placed at 11,000 killed and missing and
9,000 wounded, a total of some 25,000 men, including those put out of
action by sickness and exhaustion. The cadres had been so depleted that
some regiments had only about ten officers left. Material was in a sad
condition; half of the guns, rifles and machine-guns were useless, at
least for the time being, and reserves of ammunition had given out.

The men looked hardly human in their ragged clothing. There were
terrible gaps in their ranks. The infantry--to mention only the arm
which had the hardest fighting to do--was reduced to 32,000 rifles. Yet,
in spite of its weakness and its destitution--all the more pitiable now
that winter was approaching--this army set about mounting guard over the
last fragment of Belgian soil which its valour had preserved for the
fatherland.

Three years have passed, and it still clings obstinately to its
position, though the front originally defended in the battle of the Yser
has been gradually lengthened. Circumstances have not hitherto allowed
the Belgian Army to undertake operations on a large scale. Except for
the considerable part which it played in checking the German attack on
Steenstraat (April-May, 1915), when poisonous gas made its first
appearance, its activities have been limited to minor operations,
carried out chiefly with the object of improving its positions. These
last have, however, been held with admirable courage and tenacity.
Simultaneously with the tremendous effort which resulted in its glorious
resurrection, the Belgian Army has done wonders along this front under
peculiarly trying conditions, by dint of hard work and stoical
endurance. Amid mud and water its soldiers have raised fortifications
which are models of strength and ingenuity. So that the Belgian front,
despite the unparalleled difficulties to be overcome, is admittedly
among those whose defences have been constructed in the most solid
possible manner. It is, in fact, a vast fortress, extending over many
square kilometres. The visitor may be astonished when he notes the
degree of perfection to which the Belgian Command has brought the
organisation, properly so-called, of an army now consisting of robust
men, well supplied with all kinds of armament and technical material,
self-reliant and confident in its renewed strength; but he is
dumbfounded when he realises what infinite labour was needed to build
across these wet plains, oozing water everywhere, the impassable
barrier which has arisen under the very guns of the enemy.

We propose to notice briefly here the chief features of this last
enterprise, which is unknown to the world in general. Perhaps a
description of it will lead to fuller appreciation of the part played by
the Belgian Army since its front was immobilised on the Yser, and to a
better understanding of the energy, goodwill and endurance of which it
has given proof.


THE FRONT TO BE HELD--THE TASK BEFORE THE BELGIAN ARMY--GENERAL FEATURES
OF THE COUNTRY TO BE ORGANISED FOR DEFENCE.

After their failure to trample upon the remnants of the Belgian Army and
take Calais, the Germans had transferred their activities to the Ypres
district, where they hoped that attacks pressed home with the utmost
fury would enable them to effect their purpose. This second stage in the
battle of Flanders ended in the enemy experiencing a second check as
costly as the first. While it was in progress, the Germans, with the
double object of holding the Allied forces on the north and of trying to
force the Yser at that point, renewed their assaults on the Dixmude
bridgehead. On November 10th, 1914, the weakened French and Belgian
troops, whose muddy trenches had been blown to pieces by the
bombardment, had to give ground before the enemy's pressure and fall
back on to the left bank of the Yser, leaving the ruins of Dixmude in
the hands of the Germans. But all attempts of the enemy to cross the
river were fruitless. The Germans encountered so stubborn a resistance
that they soon abandoned a project which had already cost them frightful
losses.

With the approach of winter, fighting gradually died down all along the
Flanders front. The two opponents were exhausted, and were obliged to
reconstitute their forces and organise their respective positions. From
this time onwards there was nothing to record save a few local
engagements of short duration, though fierce and always entailing heavy
casualties. The enemy's artillery, however, took advantage of its
numerical superiority and greater weight in the Belgian sector to keep
up a ceaseless and destructive fire upon our works, now in their
earliest stages, and on the villages which acted as cantonments for our
wearied troops. One after the other, the humble townlets of the Yser
front crumbled into dust, shot to pieces by shell and devoured by fire.

It was in this devastated and desolate region, and in the depth of a
severe winter, that the hastily reformed Belgian Army--as yet hardly
recovered from its terrible experiences and still lacking a thousand
necessaries--had to set to work to convert into a solid rampart the weak
barrier on which the enemy's attacks had been broken only by prodigies
of heroism.

The front entrusted to its care extended from the outskirts of Nieuport
to the old Knocke fort at the confluence of the Yser with the Yperlée.
Passing round the east side of Nieuport, it rejoins the railway to the
south of the town and then follows the railway embankment to Dixmude,
separated by the inundation from the Yser itself. To the south-west of
Oud-Stuyvekenskerke the front curves inwards to meet the Yser <DW18> at
the 16th milestone, and runs along the left bank of the river, skirting
the lands which the flood waters, working steadily southwards, have
converted into swamps.

As fast as the Belgian Army regained its strength the front was extended
further, along the Yperlée and the Ypres canal, to the north of
Steenstraat in the first instance, and then to Boesinghe. So it is
really the Belgian Army which has definitely organised the whole front
up to the latter place, over a distance of at least 31 kilometres.

If one considers only the portion which had to be defended by the army
in the early stages--that between the sea and Fort Knocke--it is clear
that a heavy strain was put upon the weak effectives left in being after
the battle of the Yser--a strain all the greater because the gaps in the
ranks could be filled but slowly and with great difficulty.

The inundations certainly protected a large part of the front and made
the enemy's attacks less formidable. But the protection might be
nullified by frost. A great deal of work was, therefore, needed to
enable the area of the inundation to be regulated at will, to prevent
the water invading our own trenches, and to make it impossible for the
enemy to use the inundation against us.

It would be a serious mistake to assume that this sheet of water formed
an impassable obstacle at all points. Where it seemed to give the
greatest security--between the Nieuport-Dixmude railway and the
Yser--the roads and tracks, which are causeways in all weathers, and the
small risings in the ground near the buildings and farms scattered about
the country, stood out of the great lagoon and offered chances of
getting across, or formed islands that might usefully be occupied.

From the first Belgians and Germans had fought for the possession of
these points, in order to cover their main positions and prevent access
to them by the creation of advanced posts in the very heart of the
floods. Further to the south, the water had spared the Dixmude region,
where the ground rises slightly. At this place the two foes lay facing
one another, separated only by the width of the Yser--some 15 to 20
yards. Just as it was necessary to organise a bridgehead able to resist
any attack at Nieuport--where the locks are--so at Dixmude, where we
were in close contact with the enemy, we had to construct a bastion of
the strongest possible kind, since this was a vital spot in the Belgian
line, and the enemy's repeated attempts upon it showed clearly enough
how extremely important he considered its possession to be.

Still further south, the Belgian front clung to the western bank of the
canal formed by the Yser and Yperlée, while the enemy occupied the
other, keeping as close to it as he could and standing off only when
compelled to do so by the floods.

To sum up: though the main positions were not very near together, the
advanced posts of both sides threatened each other, in some instances at
point-bl