1st Battle of Ypres 1914

To set the scene for some of the events that happened in this area it is important to understand that following the 1st Battle of the Marne in September 1914 (The famous one where the taxis from Paris ferried French troops to the front) there was a race to the sea.

Both sides having discovered that they could not go through each other tried to outflank their opponent. For the British any attempt by the Germans to take the Channel Ports had to be met with resistance. The key to the area was the town of Ypres in the west of Belgium and just north of the Franco-Belgian border. The name haunts our military history only slightly less than that of the Somme.

In mid October 1914 the British Army arrived at Wipers as it became known to the British soldiers and prepared to fight. The Commander in Chief of the British Expeditionary Force: Field Marshal Sir John French was certain that the numbers opposing him were considerably less than being reported. He was badly mistaken, but fortunately the local commander was General Sir Douglas Haig of I Corps.

Hanging on to the Menin Road

By 25 October 1915 The German Fourth and Sixth Armies were squeezing both sides of the British salient which jutted out down the Menin Road past Hooge to Gheluvelt. On a map it looks like a nose with the town of Ypres as the eye.

Haig had his men dig in either side of the Menin Road, guns trained on the likely approaches (Including Polygon Wood, scene of fierce fighting by the Australians in 1917).

I would also point out that digging in, did not mean the sophisticated trench systems that were going to appear within the year - more a hole in the ground you could get some cover from.

The attack came at 05:30 hours on 29 October fronted by a newly formed formation called the Army Group Fabeck after their General. Over the next three days the British once again demonstrated their professionalism with the rifle, cutting the advancing Germans down with ease. For all that the Germans outnumbered the British three to one at Ypres their progress was slow going and their casualties enormous, but so were those of the British and they could ill afford them.

By the 31st things had become critical at Gheluvelt. At 06:15 hours von Fabeck launched his assault on the village and despite the ferocity and speed of the British rifle fire, by 11:30 hours they had taken the village through sheer weight of numbers.

Hooge Chateau Shelled

Worse was to come for at Hooge Chateau Major Generals Lomax and Monro commanding the two defending Divisions were holding a conference. At 13:15 German artillery started shelling the chateau.

Hooge

Both generals were injured (Lomax dying a few months later) as were a number of important members of their staffs.

2nd Worcesters retake Gheluvelt

Just as things seemed to be desperate 2nd Worcesters made a stunning bayonet charge from the north west of the village. The battalion was down to 454 men and took a further 183 casualties in their action but it helped stem the time at a critical moment.

That evening Haig decided to abandon the village pulling his over stretched line back down the road towards Hooge. There a Battalion of French Zouaves arrived to help shore up the line, but the pressure from the Germans seemed unstoppable.

A near run thing

This pressure grew to its height on 11 November 1914 when the Germans tried to press home their advantage in numbers with everything that they had, to the north and south of Ypres and most of all with the Prussian Guard directly at the British hanging on to the Menin Road. At Nonne Bosschen the Guards came forward in waves and were shot down and eventually beaten back.

The repulse of the Prussian Guard by cooks, drivers and clerks - all that Haig had left to throw at them - led to a remark by a captured German Officer who on discovering that they had been within a whisker of piercing the Allied front line replied: 'God Almighty'

In some ways it was this failure by the Germans that was to seal the fate of many Allied soldiers in the four years to come before 11 November 1918 would bring an end to it all. The Allied High Command would often continue to press on with an attack in the worry that all they were up against were the cooks and bottle washers of a supposedly near beaten German Army.

Unfortunately for millions of men this was not to be the case until 8 August 1918 heralded the beginning of another 100 Days. In 1815 that had ended in another near run thing (If my quote is remembered correctly) for the moment in 1914 both sides began to dig in.

2nd Ypres
Ieper Town