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THE BATTLES IN FLANDERS




The Daily Telegraph

WAR BOOKS

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~HOW THE WAR BEGAN~ By W. L. COURTNEY, LL.D., and J. M. KENNEDY

~THE FLEETS AT WAR~ By ARCHIBALD HURD

~THE CAMPAIGN OF SEDAN~ By GEORGE HOOPER

~THE CAMPAIGN ROUND LIEGE~ By J. M. KENNEDY

~IN THE FIRING LINE~ By A. ST. JOHN ADCOCK

~GREAT BATTLES OF THE WORLD~ By STEPHEN CRANE

~BRITISH REGIMENTS AT THE FRONT~

~THE RED CROSS IN WAR~ By Miss MARY FRANCES BILLINGTON

~FORTY YEARS AFTER~ The Story of the Franco-German War By H. C.
BAILEY With an Introduction by W. L. COURTNEY, LL.D.

~A SCRAP OF PAPER~ By E. J. DILLON

~HOW THE NATIONS WAGED WAR~ By J. M. KENNEDY

~AIR-CRAFT IN WAR~ By S. ERIC BRUCE

~FAMOUS FIGHTS OF INDIAN NATIVE REGIMENTS~ By REGINALD HODDER

~THE FIGHTING RETREAT TO PARIS~ By ROGER INGPEN

~THE FIRST CAMPAIGN IN RUSSIAN POLAND~ By P. C. STANDEN

~THE BATTLES OF THE RIVERS~ By EDMUND DANE

~FROM HELIGOLAND TO KEELING ISLAND~ By ARCHIBALD HURD

~THE SLAV NATIONS~ By SRGJAN PL. TUCIC

~SUBMARINES, MINES AND TORPEDOES~ By A. S. DOMVILLE-FIFE

~WITH THE R.A.M.C. AT THE FRONT~ By E. C. VIVIAN

~MOTOR TRANSPORTS IN WAR~ By HORACE WYATT

~HACKING THROUGH BELGIUM~ By EDMUND DANE

~WITH THE FRENCH EASTERN ARMY~

~THE GERMAN NAVY~ By ARCHIBALD HURD


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THE BATTLES IN FLANDERS

FROM YPRES TO NEUVE CHAPELLE


BY

EDMUND DANE


HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON    NEW YORK    TORONTO
MCMXV




PREFATORY NOTE


Ever since the middle of November last there has been on the West
front in the present war what many have called and considered a
"deadlock." In the account which follows of that part of the campaign
represented by the battles in Flanders the true character of the
great and brilliant military scheme by means of which, and against
apparently impossible odds, the Allied commanders succeeded in
reducing the main fighting forces of Germany to impotence, and in
defeating the purposes of the invasion, will, I hope, become clear.
The success or failure of that scheme depended upon the issue of the
Battle of Ypres. Not only was that great battle the most prolonged,
furious, and destructive clash of arms yet known, but upon it also,
for reasons which in fact disclose the real history of this struggle,
hung the issue of the War as a whole. No accident merely of a despot's
desires caused the fury and the terror of Ypres. It was the big bid of
Prussian Militarism for supremacy. Equally in the terrible and ghastly
defeat it there sustained Prussian Militarism faced its doom.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER                                                 PAGE

   I. THE CRISIS OF OCTOBER                                9

  II. HOW THE CRISIS WAS MET                              20

 III. THE EVE OF YPRES                                    34

  IV. THE BATTLE OF YPRES--FIRST PHASE                    44

   V. THE BATTLE OF YPRES--SECOND PHASE                   58

  VI. THE BATTLE OF YPRES--THE CRISIS                     81

 VII. THE BATTLE OF YPRES--FINAL PHASE                   104

VIII. THE BATTLE ON THE YSER                             120

  IX. THE WINTER CAMPAIGN                                144

   X. NEUVE CHAPELLE                                     169




CHAPTER I

THE CRISIS OF OCTOBER


At the beginning of October there had arisen in the Western campaign a
crisis with which it needed the utmost skill and resource of the
Allied generals to grapple.

Both the nature of this crisis, and the necessity of reticence
concerning it at the time, ought to be made clear if we are to
appreciate either the momentous character of the Battle of Ypres, or
the profound effect which that glorious feat of the Allied arms has
had upon the fortunes of this War.

Into France at the beginning of the War the Germans threw their mighty
Expeditionary Force of twenty-eight army corps, disposed into eight
armies acting in co-operation. With the circumstances under which that
line of armies, in part held on the French fortified frontier, was
compelled to turn from Paris to the valley of the Marne and was there
defeated, I have dealt in "The Battle of the Rivers." For the reasons
there set out the original objective, the seizure of Paris, was seen
by the Germans when the army of General von Kluck reached Creil, to
have become impossible until the French fortified frontier was in
their hands. Their armies were directed upon the Marne with that aim.
In the manoeuvre they exposed the vulnerable point of their line,
its right flank, to the powerful onset, which General Joffre, who had
foreseen the situation, at once launched against it.

Defeated on the Marne, the Germans lost the military initiative--the
power to decide upon their movements and to compel the enemy to
conform to them. To the soldier the initiative is the practical
embodiment of military superiority. It is the first great step to
victory. In every war the struggle has been to seize and to hold it.
More than in any war has that been the motive in this. Campaigning
with armies, not only vast in point of numbers, but dependent upon a
huge, varied, and costly machinery of destruction, transport, and
supply, has made victory more than ever hang upon this power to direct
their complex organisation to the desired end.

All that the initiative implies. It can therefore be no matter of
surprise that Germany's long preparations were without exception
designed to seize the initiative at the outset, and to hold it if
possible. In that event the whole force of the German Empire would
with the least wastage and in the shortest possible time be applied to
the accomplishment of its Government's political aims. From the Great
Main Headquarters Staff down to the strategical railways, the depots,
the arsenals, and the military workshops, the German military