Ypres 1914
Wijtschate
1st November 1914
In bright moonlight at about 0100 hours the 6 Bavarian Reserve Division advanced on Wijtschate held by 415 members of the 4th Cavalry Brigade. Whilst they conducted that attack others attacked between the windmill just outside Messines and Wijtschate. (The windmill was located at the current site of the London Scottish Cross).
This stretch of the road was held by a party of the London Scottish and the 6th Dragoon Guards (The Carabineers).
For a while the line held back the approaching Germans but the defenders were strung out and their line was infiltrated. By daylight they had been forced to give up the position and had withdrawn towards Spanbroekmolen on the ridge to the west.
This would be the scene of one of the great mines during the battle to retake the ridge in 1917.
By the time the London Scottish had pulled back the village of Wijtschate had already fallen to the Bavarians — only to be retaken again by the advancing French 32e Division d’Infanterie.
The constant too and fro of the fighting north of Messines forced Major General Henry de Lisle (commanding the 1st Cavalry Division) to order the withdrawal of his own line towards Wulvergem and Hill 63 (above Ploegsteert).
Elsewhere, to the north that day the Allied line held its own against German assaults, but French efforts to advance proved as futile as most German attempts. As further French and British reserves arrived in the salient the advantage was turning ever more to the defenders.
Reports to Sir Douglas Haig all pointed out the severe fatigue of his men who had been in constant combat, day and night. But though worn out, they may well have been heartened by German prisoners who were equally fatigued and complained of not having had a decent meal for days.
The outcome of the battle would be as much decided by the ability to endure as military strength.
2nd November 1914
By the morning of the 2nd November the French were holding eight kilometres of the line from the Comines Canal to Spanbroekmolen.
Général d’Urbal’s orders for his men on that sector were to advance with the objective of recapturing Messines. They were pre-empted however by von Fabeck who made a strong assault around Wijtschate at 0830 hours just as the French were readying their own attack at 1000 hours.
The result was that instead of going forward the French were pushed back slightly in the face of nearly twice their numbers. Despite the weight of all the British and French artillery in the area the attack by Général Mazel’s 39e DI to retake Messines fell apart and what remained of Wijtschate in Allied hands had to be relinquished.
On the right of the French, the British 4th Division were heavily pressed near St Yves but at the day’s end were exactly where they had started.
In the area of Geluveld ten French battalions under Général Vidal were to advance between Polygon Wood and the Menin Road and attack the Germans at Geluveld. This meant passing through the British 1st Division.
Once again the Germans pre-empted the Allies and the fact that the British artillery ceased firing on those areas of the Menin Road that it could not observe greatly aided the German assault.
At this stage the Menin Road was held by a Company of the 1st Berkshire Regiment, three Companies of the 1st KRRC and the 1st Coldstream Guards (Who had an effective strength of about a Company under the command of their last two remaining officers).
Although they had put up a barricade across the Menin Road this was soon blown apart by the German artillery, and a house nearby was taken over by the Germans and used as a machine-gun post. Another machine-gun crew infiltrated between the Berkshires and the KRRC and having got behind the Rifles opened up on them at less than a hundred metres.
At about 1100 hours and just as the British ceased their own bombardment of the Menin Road the German 30 Division launched its assault. It rapidly overcame the Coldstream Guards and turned on the KRRC. Already under machine-gun fire from the rear the Rifles were overwhelmed within a few minutes creating a gap in the British front line.
Luckily for the British a short while afterwards the head of Vidal’s force arrived and with the aid of other British and French units at Geluveld took the advancing Germans in the flank and regained almost all the lost ground.
7th Division relieved
Little happened over the next few days as the Germans seemed to take a pause; giving the Allies hope that perhaps the worst was over. French plans to push forward were often as not thwarted by German assaults earlier in the day and one such attack on 5th November forced the French from Spanbroekmolen, a loss that created problems for any proposed attempt to retake Messines. Having pulled back towards Wulvergem it was now impossible to see into the Steenbeek Valley between the two villages. Any assaulting Allied troops would be hidden from their own observers once into the valley making artillery support nigh on impossible.
In June 1917 when the British Second Army swept the Germans off the ridge the advancing soldiers found the remains of numerous French pantalons rouge still lying on the battlefield unburied.
Despite the loss General Haig decided that the front remained quiet enough to relieve the 7th Division which had been at the forefront of the fighting since the start of the battle. In the space of a month its twelve and a half thousand infantrymen had been reduced to slightly more than four thousand.
Their monument stands at Broodseinde as a reminder of their gallantry.